


Legends

by Emma



Category: NCIS, Torchwood
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-09 08:31:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 21,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma/pseuds/Emma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of <em>Bloodbath</em>, Tim McGee accepts an offer from a total stranger</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A few weeks ago I saw _Bloodbath_ again. I hated it even more than the first time. So, of course, I obsessed about it until this popped up.

 

**Taft Bridge**

  **Rock Creek Park**

  **2:00am**

 

 “It's a long way down.”

 Tim rested his head on the concrete base of the eagle lamppost. “I'm not planning to jump.”

 “Well, thanks the Vortex for that. I'd hate to think that I came all the way from Cardiff to find you just in time to watch you splatter your brains on the Parkway.”

 The words jerked Tim out of the suffocating fog that had wrapped itself around him from the moment he had spoken to Sarah. Her mockery had been, he supposed, the most fitting ending to a miserable day. He had stumbled out of his apartment and wandered the streets of DC for hours, not really knowing where he was and where he was going. It was just his luck that he had ended up in a place where NCIS often did business.

 He turned, hand gripping the butt of his SIG Sauer. The man facing him, hands held loosely away from his body, took handsome to ridiculous lengths. Tall, with brown hair shot through with gold that gleamed in the lamplight, eyes that looked dark but he would bet were blue, and the smile of someone who had done it all and would happily go back for seconds. But it was the RAF topcoat that made him nearly swallow his tongue.

 “You're Captain Jack Harkness,” he blurted. “Torchwood. It's real? You're for real?”

 The smile widened into lasciviousness. “You want me to prove it?”

 “Jack. Let's not scare off Mr. McGee.”

 There was a sort of amused weariness in the low, musical voice. Tim realized that he had been so focused on the Captain that he had completely missed the man standing behind him. His first impression was that he was the perfect complement, or maybe contrast, to the flamboyant man in the RAF coat. The hair was a bit darker and curlier and the eyes a bit lighter. Instead of period costume he wore what was obviously a bespoke suit in a rich dark fabric and a turtleneck to match. He looked to be about Tim's age, give or take, but he seemed years ahead in self-assurance.

 “Let me introduce Ianto Jones. He cleans up after me, gets me everywhere on time, and he looks gorgeous in a suit.”

 The younger man's smile told Tim that both the words and the men had a long intimate history. They looked like everything he had always tried to be and never could pull off. Suddenly he couldn't understand why these two would want to have anything to do with him. He took a step back.

 “What does Torchwood want with me?”

 “We want to offer you a job. You're wasted here, Tim.” The Captain seemed much older and much sadder. “And we need a computer wizard.”

 A number of seemingly unrelated facts came together into a pattern. “JadeLotus is dead.”

 “Her name,” the younger man said, “was Toshiko Sato. She was my best friend. A year ago she told me that if something ever happened to her I should find you and drag you back to Cardiff. You were wasted in the basement, she said. When she died, I went to Jack and told him. And it turned out he already knew about you.”

 Tim focused on the Captain. “Why would you be interested in me?”

 “Long story. Come on, Tim, what have you got to lose?”

 Tim shrugged. “If my day was any indication, not a fucking thing, Captain. But I've never been one to buy a pig in a poke. Give me something.”

 “I can tell you about your mother.”

 The words smashed through Tim's bitterness. He had always known Millie McGee was not his mother; the Admiral had a penetrating voice and he always assumed children stayed where they were put after lights out. Not that she had ever been anything but a loving parent, and he loved her for that. But she had a new life and a new family. And Sarah.

 “You've got yourself a deal, Captain. Do I get to write a letter of resignation?”

 “If you want to. But Ianto has a much better idea.”

 Tim looked at the younger man. There was a sharp edge to that lovely smile that made Tim write himself a mental note never to piss Ianto Jones off.

 “What are you going to do?”

 “I'm going to make you disappear.”

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Four Years Later**  
  
Senior Field Agent Anthony DiNozzo stared at the man standing on the narrow beam that swung freely from the hook of the tower crane, fourteen or fifteen stories above the ground. Tony couldn't see the man's face, but he got an impression of a lean, strong body and incredible self-assurance, like a tightrope walker. The man was wearing dark jeans and what looked like a leather jacket over a white t-shirt, but he was too high up for Tony to make out any facial features.   
  
“He's going to end up a smear on that brick pile if he's not careful,” he muttered.  
  
“I don't think so.” His partner, Ziva David, leaned against the car, shading her eyes as she looked upwards. “He knows what he's doing.”  
  
As if to prove her point, the man launched himself into the air. As he fell he grabbed a cable that hung loosely from the crane's hook and swung in a wide arc to land on the half-finished floor of the building behind him. It seemed to Tony that he was moving before his feet even touched the ground. He heard Ziva's little whoosh as she expelled the breath she had been holding.  
  
“Are you two going to stand there all day?” their boss growled from the open square that would one day be the entrance doors to the building.   
  
“Coming, boss.”  
  
“Coming, Gibbs.”  
  
They followed him into the space beyond. The building was laid out as a hollow square, with rooms opening into corridors that looked down on what would obviously would be a combination restaurant/bar/lobby.  Hanging from one of the ironwork railings was a man. Tony didn't need Ducky to tell him the man had been tortured. Dried blood crusted his mouth and nose, and red welts covered the parts of his body that he could see. A small pool of dried blood and urine lay directly below him.  
  
“Ziva, scene photos,” Gibbs said. “Tony, check his clothes. See if you can find any...”  
  
Suddenly the man's body jerked, as if he were trying to free himself. Tony found himself shoved to the ground at about the same time he realized someone was shooting at them. Ziva had taken a long, flat dive into the space below the lowest corridor and was returning fire. Tony scrambled behind a curved half-wall and pulled out his own gun.   
  
“Ziva!”  
  
“Two, maybe three.” She pointed with her gun. “Up there. But they ran after I started shooting.”  
  
“Actually, they left because someone explained you were the good guys.”  
  
Tony whipped around, pointing his gun at the group that stood near the door, knowing that Ziva was doing the same from across the room. And what a group. A tall man in what looked like a military coat, another man in a suit so expensive it made Tony wince, and two gorgeous black women, clearly related, both dressed as if they were going out to tea at Peacock Alley instead of scrambling around a construction site.   
  
“And who the hell are you?” Tony asked.  
  
“The cavalry.”   
  
“Funny.”  Tony didn't lower his gun. “Try again.”  
  
“A lot of people have been looking for that man. His friends saw you searching the body and assumed you had killed him and were trying to find what he was carrying. One of my men talked to them.”  
  
Tony looked around, frantically trying to find Gibbs. The boss wasn't the type to fade into the background like this. He couldn't see any signs of blood except for the patch under the body, so Gibbs hadn't been hit. He looked up. Gibbs had the sniper's instinct to find a high vantage point. Maybe he had found a way upstairs.  
  
As if he could read his mind, the man in the military coat spoke again, a little louder.  “Gunnery Sergeant Gibbs? Please call Director Vance. He wants to speak to you.”  
  
They waited. Just as Tony was reaching the end of his last nerve, Gibbs came around a pillar, phone in one hand and gun in the other. Tony, who had made it his business to study Gibbs the same way he studied a piano score, could see the signs of strain around his eyes and mouth. Something had gone badly wrong somewhere.   
  
Gibbs came to stand in front of the man in the military coat, but not, Tony noticed, close enough to shake hands. “Captain  Harkness. It seems we're going to be working together.” At the other man's nod, he went on. “Our medical examiner is outside. Let's let him do his job. We can go back to the Yard and start ours.”  
  
One of the women with Captain Harkness stepped forward. “I'll stay here, Jack. Doctor Mallard and I should get to know each other.”  
  
“All right, Martha.” The Captain looked upwards. “Hey, Irish. Time to go.”  
  
Tony looked in the same direction. The man he had seen outside was standing on the railing of the third floor corridor. There was something familiar about him, Tony realized, but he couldn't quite recover the memory. He watched as the man jumped off, somersaulting in mid-air to land on one knee in front of the Captain. Harkness chuckled as he ran his hand through the man's short spiky hair.  
  
“Show off,” he murmured.  
  
The man chuckled. “Just having a bit of fun, boss.”  
  
It was the voice that finally did it for Tony. He stood up, gun and possible threats forgotten. “Probie?”


	3. Chapter 3

“Where the hell have you been, Probie?”  
  
The nickname, once a source of irritation, only made Tim grin. “Here, there, and everywhere, Tony. Jack believes travel broadens the mind.”  
  
They were sitting around the bullpen. Jack, Ianto, and Gibbs had disappeared upstairs into Vance's office, leaving them to wait while all the diplomatic and political niceties were ironed out. Tim had introduced Tish, who had been promptly whisked away  by Ziva for the feminine ritual of _freshening up_. Left alone with Tony, he had braced himself for the barrage of questions.  
  
“What I really want to know is, how did you,” Tony wiggled his fingers towards the workstation on his desk, “do what you did.”  
  
“What I did?”  
  
Tony snorted. “When we started looking for you, we couldn't find any records. Not employment records, no school records, no passport, not even the lease on your apartment. If your mother hadn't had a copy of your birth certificate, we couldn't have even proved you had been born!”  
  
“That was Ianto. He makes a specialty of that sort of thing.”  
  
“Impressive.” Tony fiddled with his watchband. “So this Torchwood, what is it all about? I've never heard of it and I thought I was familiar with most police bodies in the UK.”  
  
“That's a tale for after,” Tim pointed to the door of Vance's office, “that is all settled.”  
  
Tony seemed to hesitate, then he shook his head. “You've changed, Tim.”  
  
“Jack does that to people.” Tim shrugged. “So have you, it seems.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“No stupid nicknames. No pushy questions. No frat boy humor.”  
  
Tony grinned. “Give me a chance, McAcrobat. You've only been back...” He looked over Tim's shoulder. “Oh shit.”  
  
Tim turned to see Abby Sciuto explode out of the elevator. She hadn't changed much, if the Goth schoolgirl outfit and the shrieking were any indication. Tim stared at her and wondered what he had ever seen in her.  
  
“Timmy! Timmy! You're back!” She threw herself into his arms. “I didn't believe it when they told me you were back, but here you are, and it's all going to be perfect again!”  
  
He detached her gently. “I'm not back to stay, Abby.”  
  
She gave him one of her patented _don't argue with me_ looks and grabbed his arm. “You'll have to find a new apartment because yours is probably already leased, it's been four years, and...”  
  
“Abby,” he interrupted her, a little less gently. “I am not here to stay. Not. Not here to stay.”  
  
She ignored him and went off again. “I even have a dog you can adopt to make you feel at home, and...”  
  
The oration was interrupted in mid-gallop by a glacial voice.  
  
“Which part of he's _not here to stay_ did you miss?”  
  
Tim winced. Torchwood had brought him the friendship of a number of strong, brilliant, and courageous women, all of whom shared an inability to suffer fools in any way. Of all of them, the one whose temper he feared the most was petite, delicate Tish Jones. He watched her stalk towards them and hoped Abby would survive the encounter.  
  
Abby stared at her. “Who is this, Timmy?”  
  
“My name is Laetitia Jones and you've got your paws on my partner. I suggest you take them off right now before you lose the use of your fingers.”  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, Tim noticed Tony go from alarm to outright panic. Well, Tony had always been good at reading people's characters. He swallowed the completely inappropriate giggle that threatened to escape him. Abby, true to form, tried to bluster her way through.  
  
“Tim is an old friend!”  
  
“You have a peculiar idea of friendship, Miss Sciuto.”  
  
“I don't know what he's told you... Timmy, tell her!”  
  
“He hasn't told me a thing and he didn't need to. You, Miss Sciuto, are brilliant at your job. You're also an infantile, self-centered little ninny.” The indictment was delivered in the same cold, even voice. “You threw away the best thing that ever happened to you. Well, he is ours now and we don't share. Now I suggest you go back to your lab and wait to be summoned.”  
  
Abby's mouth opened and closed. She looked at Tim, who stared back at her in silence. She turned away, tossing her braids, and clumped into the elevator.  
  
“You'll have to watch yourself,” Ziva warned. “Abby is known for holding grudges.”  
  
Tish's smile made them all blanch. “I've survived things that make the worst Ms. Sciuto can dream up seem like a walk on the beach, Agent David. If she steps out of line, I'll slap her right back in. All in all, she's small potatoes.”  



	4. Chapter 4

Tony watched  the MTAC geeks file out, most of them looking curiously over their shoulders at the assembled group. He commandeered the aisle chair on the fourth row from where he could watch the whole room. If the look on Vance's face was any indication, they were in for a hell of a briefing.  
  
Gibbs was harder to read. He had on what Tony privately called his sniper's look; the calm that came when all the planning was done and all it remained was to take the shot.  But underneath that there was something like shock, and that scared Tony out of his mind.  
  
“Doctor Mallard, Doctor Palmer, and Doctor Jones are on their way.” Vance said. “Mr. Jones, MTAC is all yours.”  
  
“Thank you, Director.”  
  
The young man took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He was wearing a wide, thick leather cuff. Tony heard a faint snap as part of the leather folded back to reveal a metal plate studded with buttons. Jones tapped them in a short one two – pause – one two sequence. A few seconds later all the workstations, which Tony had seen locked down and secured a few minutes before, turned themselves on. Masses of what looked like data scrolled up, too fast for the human eye to read, and then all the screens, including the large one, showed a large red T made out of locking hexagons.  
  
Jones stepped back. “Irish, would you do the honors?”  
  
Tim grinned and slid into one of the chairs in front of the workstations. Tony noticed he had taken what had been his usual seat four years before. He watched Tim's hands fly over the keyboard. If Tony was any judge, Tim's skills had gone from amazing to spectacular. He looked around. Vance and Ziva were clearly impressed. Gibbs' face hadn't changed... no, it had, though you'd have to know what to look for.  
  
Tony's eyes narrowed as he looked from Gibbs to Tim and back again. He gave a soundless whistle. Now that was one for the books. Damn. No wonder the boss had walked around like a bear with a sore tooth for four years.  
  
“Hello, Tim.”  The voice coming from the speakers had a little of Jones' Welsh lilt but it was purely female. “All clear. Their security is crap.”  
  
“Behave, Mimi.” Tim swiveled his chair to face the room. “Mainframe has optimized your network, Director. She has also neutralized several Trojans and a rather neat little program that was rounding down payroll figures and skimming the leftovers. A penny here and a penny there and it's adding up to real money.”  
  
Vance gaped. “That was your computer?”  
  
“Mimi considers that particular appellation an insult. She is an organic construct  and is sentient within the parameters defined by the Shadow Coalition.”  
  
“The what?” Vance asked.  
  
“Long story. “ Tim waved towards the door. “Hey, Ducky!”  
  
Tony looked over his shoulder.  Ducky was walking in arm in arm with the stunning Doctor Jones, and if the amount of whispering and giggling was any indication, the flirting had been hot and heavy.  Behind them trailed Jimmy and Abby, one looking bewildered and the other one sulky.  
  
“Timothy, my dear. So nice to see you again.”  
  
“Jack,” Doctor Jones grinned at her boss. “Ducky has been telling me the most interesting stories about you.”  
  
Harkness started to say something, but Ducky held up a hand. “Don't you try to sell me on the father story, Jack Harkness. Estelle and I had a number of very long talks before I came to the States.”  
  
“I was just going to say hello!”  
  
For some reason the phrase sent all of Harkness' team into fits of giggles. Harkness ignored them. Walking to the bottom of the stairs, he held his arms wide. Ducky kissed Doctor Jones' hand before releasing her and walking straight into them.  As the men hugged, Tony caught the whispered _I missed you,Graeme_ from the Torchwood leader. Interesting.  
  
Vance cleared his throat. “We should move along.” He stopped, looking uncharacteristically confused. “Question is, where do we start!”  
  
Doctor Jones joined Jack in front of the big screen. “Perhaps we can start with the facts. Tim, ask Mimi to upload the video. Ducky, maybe you should handle this part of the briefing.” She grinned at him. “You've gotten over the shock.”  
  
“You forget, I've known Jack for a long time. He tends to make one shockproof.”  
  
The T on the screen was replaced by a view of the autopsy table. Ducky, Martha, and Jimmy were gathered around the corpse. Ducky talked through the preliminaries then made the incisions and opened the chest.  
  
“What the hell?”  Jimmy jerked back from the corpse. “That's impossible!”  
  
“I'm afraid not.” Martha answered as she prodded around the chest cavity. “Our victim is a Thal. Humanoid, but not human.”  
  
Both men stared at her as if she had grown another head. She sighed.  
  
“The evidence is on the table, gentlemen. One heart with only three chambers. Four lungs.  No equivalent of the human liver. Alimentary canal does not have a stomach as such. Can you think of a human who could live to adulthood with such internal arrangements?” Both men shook their heads. “Exactly. Not human.”  
  
“You're saying he's from another planet,” Jimmy sounded like he wanted to argue. “An alien.”  
  
“Got it in one, Doctor Palmer.” She smiled at them. “Welcome to Torchwood, gentlemen. The train to your new reality departs now.”


	5. Chapter 5

Tim stretched out his legs comfortably and studied his former colleagues as Ducky walked everyone in the room through the details of the autopsy. Vance had the look of someone whose brain was being forcefully rearranged;Tim gave him points for perseverance. Ziva sat with Tish and Martha, obviously evaluating each piece of evidence as if she were working a regular case. Abby was keeping her bouncing to a minimum, sucking up all the information and probably figuring out what tests she could run on the tissue samples. Tony seemed to take it all in stride, but Tim knew he was in for an epic interrogation. Basically, after the first moment of shock, they had all settled into their usual patterns.  
  
But Gibbs... Gibbs was different. Gibbs had not been _surprised_. At all.  
  
He tapped the implant behind his right ear. _Mimi_ , he subvocalized, _let's look for any connection between Gunnery Sergeant Leroy Jethro Gibbs and the Captain. No matter how_ _slight_.  
  
 _Trouble_?  
  
 _Probably not, but let's make sure_.  
  
“So you're saying that he was electrocuted before he died,” Vance said to Ducky.  “Torture?”  
  
Ducky nodded. “They were planning to work on him for a while, hanging him by the wrists like that, but they didn't know they were not dealing with a human. They killed him almost immediately.”  
  
“Question is,” Tony said, “why? One why and one what, really. Why was he passing himself off as a Navy captain and what was he killed for.”  
  
“That we can help with,” Jack answered. “A little background first. There has been a small colony of Thal on Earth for about two hundred years. They look human enough not to raise suspicion, so they blended into the population, took human names, and settled down to farm and raise all sort of livestock. Before someone asks, they are pacifists, although they can fight if they have to. Torchwood keeps an eye on them and helps wherever we can.”  
  
He turned to look at the screen, now displaying a head and shoulders shot of the dead man. “A few weeks ago, this Thal contacted us. His name, by the way, is Michael Sexton and he runs one of the largest organic farms in the Eastern seaboard.”  
  
Jimmy gave a startled squeak. “Sheesh. I buy all my produce from Sexton farms!”  
  
“And so you should. Thals are fanatical about quality in everything they do.” Jack told him. “Michael told us that the Thals living in the United States are being subjected to a campaign of terror by a mysterious someone calling himself or herself Liam.”  
  
“Liam?” Ziva asked sharply. “Are you sure?”  
  
“Certain.” Jack gave her what Tim called the _captain's death glare_. “Do you know who it is?”  
  
She gave as good as she got. “One of Mossad's best agents was codenamed Liam. As far as I know, he was killed while tracking a Russian gang of plutonium smugglers.”  
  
“Irish?”  
  
“On it, boss.” Tim turned back to the terminal. “Let me see what I can find.”  
  
Ziva snorted. “Why would a Mossad agent turn blackmailer like that?”  
  
“Maybe he went into business for himself. Maybe his killers decided to use his name to throw suspicion on Mossad. Maybe the name is a coincidence.” Jack held up a hand to stop her reply. “We'll find out one way or another.”  
  
Tim decided to hit Interpol first. He had planted a neat little rootkit in the network server at their Singapore office that would let him send a query to any national police database in Interpol's member states. If the Russians didn't have anything, he could launch to Mossad from there by way of Bolivia. Mimi could have done it in seconds, but he liked to keep his skills current.  
  
While he worked he kept an ear on the conversation going on behind him. Abby was reporting on the results of her tests on the rope used to hang  Sexton.  
  
“I found blood and skin on the rope. The forensic guys also found it on the railing. Whoever tied him up and threw him over the railing got rope burns on his palms. And before you ask, Gibbs, he was human. I've started a DNA search.”  
  
“That'll take a while,” Tony said. “So let's keep going with explanation. What happened after Sexton contacted you?” he asked Harkness.  
  
“We told him to sit tight and wait for us, but that same night his life partner, Captain Nicholas Chandler, was murdered. The body was dumped on Michael's doorstep. The next morning I got a text from Michael telling me that he knew who Liam was and asking us to meet him at the Hays-Adams hotel here in DC. I think we broke every speed record getting here but he had already disappeared. Then Irish here got the bright idea of monitoring your communications.”  
  
Gibbs spoke up for the very first time. “Because any case involving a navy officer would come to us.”  
  
The approval in his voice gave Tim a small, quiet thrill, and then anger almost boiled over. Gibbs had known he was good at his job, and he could have grown even better, but he had pushed Tim away and allowed him to be harassed by the other members of the team until he had chosen to disappear in the middle of the night. And now the bastard had the nerve to approve of him. His fists clenched on the keyboard  
  
Work,  he reminded himself. Jack was counting on him and it was Jack's approval that mattered. He recited the Aa'el _submission to duty_ litany as he deliberately unclenched his fists. He was looking through the data coming in from Singapore when Mimi spoke up, sounding uncharacteristically subdued.  
  
 _Tim? I looked everywhere, from two years before Gibbs' birth to present_. _There was nothing to suggest that Gibbs and the Captain had ever crossed paths. Then I realized there_ _was a place we wouldn't usually look in. So I did_.” Her brief hesitation was enough for Tim to know what was coming. _L.J. Gibbs is listed as a prisoner on the Valiant for the last three months of the year that never was._


	6. Chapter 6

“So, Jones?”  
  
“Call me Ianto. In our bunch, yelling _Jones!_ will get you the wrong person two out of three times.”  
  
“Fair enough, and I'm Tony. I wondered about that bracelet thing of yours. Standard equipment?” Tish and Tim raised their arms to show their naked wrists. “Guess not.”  
  
While the Captain, Doctor Jones, Ducky, Gibbs, and Leon headed out for lunch at an undisclosed location with a number of high level Washington types – Tony had a bet with himself that the address began with 1600 and ended in Pennsylvania Avenue – he had commandeered the Director's conference room and ordered in sandwiches and all the fixings from Tim's favorite deli for everyone else. He had always believed that good food lowered barriers and inhibitions, and he really, really wanted to know a little bit more about Torchwood and Tim's life in it.  
  
“It was a wedding present from an old friend of the family.”  
  
Tony's eyes shifted to Tish, who had started what looked like an intense conversation with Jimmy and Ziva. Tim chuckled.  
  
“Wrong one, Tony. In private life, all our Joneses are hyphenated. Martha is Milligan-Jones, Tish is Davidson-Jones, and Ianto is Harkness-Jones.”  
  
Tony was very glad that he had swallowed his mouthful of coffee before Tim reached the end of the sentence. Though now a lot of little things made sense. Like how the two men always stood within touching distance of each other, or the looks that seemed to communicate more than a five-page memo.  But he had also noticed how the Captain had stroked Tish's arm on the way out or the passionate hug with Ducky. Or how he tended to brush his fingers through Tim's hair.  
  
Just as he had decided that discretion was a virtue he should for once practice, Ianto seemed to take pity on him.  
  
“Jack is a complicated man with complicated relationships, Tony. But he comes home to me every night.” He waited a moment, then went on, “it's just that sometimes he brings company.”  
  
Tony stared at him for a moment, then laughed. He could tell when his chain was being jerked. “As long as you're happy. Seriously, though. This whole alien thing... You do this for a living?”  
  
“Beats running a tourist office,”Ianto said blandly.  
  
The three Torchwood agents burst into giggles, the same way they had in MTAC  when the Captain had made the joke about saying hello. Shared humor. This was a close team, and Tim was right in the middle of it, a strong equal. Tony had been wondering how he had managed to screw up back then, when Tim was part of his team, and now he saw part of it in that laughter. During Tim's time at NCIS they rest of them had laughed at him. These people laughed with him.  
  
“Do all aliens look like Sexton?” Jimmy asked  “No, I guess they wouldn't, would they? I don't think I've ever seen an alien.”  
  
“Actually, you have,” Ianto said easily. “A half-alien, anyway.”  
  
Everyone looked at him. Tony noticed the amused grins on Tish's and Ianto's faces and the dawning realization in Ziva's. “Probie?”  
  
“There are only three races that can crossbreed with humans without benefit of genetic surgery, and of those only one has reached this particular time period. They are called the Aa'el. My birth mother was an Aa'el. She died in childbirth. The Admiral married Millie Patterson less than a year later and she raised me as her son.”  
  
Abby, who had been miraculously quiet until then, gave a loud snort. “Oh Timmy. You're still living in a fantasy world, aren't you?”  
  
There was a sudden, embarrassed silence. Before Tony could think of a way to ease the tension, Tish spoke up.  
  
“A forty year old woman that still dresses like a schoolgirl shouldn't be throwing stones about fantasy lives.”  
  
Abby blanched. Jumping up, she stormed out of the room. Tony sighed.  
  
“She looked for you everywhere after you went missing. Alternated between being angry at you for leaving and terrified that you were dead.  It was worse after Gibbs found out that she had disobeyed your instructions about opening the door. I caught part of the argument, and it was a doozy. Their relationship has never really recovered.”  
  
“She was convinced that if you came back everything would return to the way it was before.” Ziva added. “I think she must have looked at the footage from every security camera in a twenty mile radius around your apartment trying to find you... Tim, what is it?”  
  
“Security cameras.”  
  
Tony shook his head. “None in the immediate area. I checked.”  
  
“But there are some on the bank building two streets away and they have a clear shot of the construction site. I could see them from the beam.”  
  
“Too far away to show much,” Ziva objected.  
  
“True, but I have a secret weapon. Come on. We have some footage to look through.”


	7. Chapter 7

The Kass Brothers shop was a dingy little storefront in a dingy strip mall on the Virginia side of the Potomac. Tim slid the rental SUV into the space next to the blue NCIS sedan. Sitting next to him, Tish checked her gun. It still startled him to see how competent she was with it; four years before, when she had shown up at Jack's door, shivering and half-delirious with fever, he wouldn't have bet money on her survival, much less becoming a damn good agent.   
  
Jack and Ianto were away at some sort of multi-agency meeting and had offered their guest room to Tim while his flat was being painted. He had been woken by hammering on the door. When he had opened it, gun in hand, she had nearly collapsed against him. He had managed to calm her down by wrapping her in Jack's bathrobe and tucking her into Jack and Ianto's bed. Then he had called Martha.  
  
“We were in the same war but in different battlefields. Hers was harder than mine in many ways,” she had told him. “I can't take her to  hospital. Would you take care of her until I make other arrangements?”  
  
He had agreed. At first he had paid no attention to her babbling, but at some point in the night he had started to listen. And he had learned about the year that never was.  
  
'Tim?”   
  
He smiled at her. “Sorry. Woolgathering a bit. Let's go.”  
  
They joined Tony and Ziva at the shop's back door. Tony gave him a severe look. “You realize that we cannot use anything we find as evidence?” he whispered.  
  
Tim snorted. “You think this is ever going to court?”  
   
“Didn't think so.” Tony tried the door. “Locked.”  
  
“No problem.”   
  
Tim took what everyone in the team referred to as his toy, adjusted a few settings, and pointed it at the door. There was a soft hum and a click. Tony grabbed the handle and pulled. The door opened.  
  
“Damn, McAlien Geek, you've got great toys.”  
  
“And you ain't seen nothing yet, Tony.” He made an after you gesture. “Allons-y.”  
  
They stepped into a cramped room, packed to the roof with old boxes. In one corner and old card table held a coffee maker, coffee supplies, and some foam cups. Beyond that was a doorway without a door and a shower curtain blocking the view. They could hear voices in the room beyond.  Tony motioned them to spread out, then, grinning, kicked over a stack of boxes. They crashed to the ground with a satisfying din of broken glass and crunched metal.  
  
When the two men walked into the room, they found themselves on the business end of four guns, two of them being held to their temples by two beautiful women that looked like they would pull the triggers without giving it a second thought.  
  
“Hello,” Tony flashed his credentials. “We want to ask you a few questions.”  
  
“Hey! You can't come in here without a...”   
  
His mouth closed with a snap as the gun being held to his head clicked ominously. Tony smiled gently.  
  
“Now, Tish. Mr. Kass is going to be really helpful. Why don't you and Ziva search the place while we talk? Keys, Mr. Kass.”  
  
The keys were reluctantly handed over. As the women left the room, Ziva said to Tish in a considering tone, “That's an useful trick.”  
  
“Absolutely,” was the smug rejoinder. “That click is the best ever period for that sort of sentence.”  
  
Tony  herded them to the coffee table and there they sat, hands folded, looking less like the brawlers their records said they were and more like two tourists who had gotten lost in the wrong part of town and wanted desperately to get out alive.  
  
“You kidnapped, tortured, and killed a man last Friday.” Tony said. “You didn't expect anyone to find the body until Monday. Unfortunately for you, a subcontractor was a little behind schedule and he decided to go in over the weekend and get caught up.”  
  
“Look,” the older of the men was trying to sound unafraid, “we don't know what you're talking about. We're electrical contractors for god's sake, not... contract killers or whatever you think we are.”  
  
Tim slid his phone in front of them. A slide show played slowly enough to let the viewer get a very good look at each image. It showed the Kass brothers dragging an unconscious Michael Sexton into the half-finished building. It showed them coming out without him. It also showed a closeup of one of the brothers' hand and arm, with red burns on the palm, wrist, and half-way up the arm.  
  
“Can we start again?” Tony said.   
  
“Look. Can we make a deal or something?”  
  
“Or something.” Tim holstered his gun. Pouring two cups of coffee, he set them in front of the men. “Tell us about it.”  
  
The older man sighed. “A couple of years ago we got into some trouble. Money not coming in, we were going to lose the business. This guy, Liam, lent us the money to keep going.” He sipped at the coffee, made a face. Tim opened a couple of sugar packets and poured the contents into the cups. “Thanks. Anyway, he never wanted anything but that we let him use this place for storage from time to time. Then last Thursday he showed up and told us he was calling in his favor. God.”  
  
“Where can we find this Liam?”  
  
“I don't know.” At the look on Tony's face, he held up his hands. “I don't know! After the first meeting he told us to send messages through his buddy, Nick.”  
  
“Nick Quaderi,” Ziva said from the doorway, holding up a business card. “We have the address.”


	8. Chapter 8

Tony glanced at Ziva from time to time as they drove to Nick Quaderi's place. His partner's face was perfectly blank, which meant she was trying to figure out where her loyalties lay. He had seen it happen before and she had usually come through, but those times she hadn't, there had been hell to pay.  
  
Tony had a feeling that if Ziva bet the wrong way, clusterfuck wasn't even going to begin to describe the result. And there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.  
  
He reached for his travel mug, smelled the coffee, grimaced, and set it back in the holder. He really should not try to make his own coffee in the mornings. And that led him in another direction. He had seen Tim put something in the Kass brothers' coffee and he suspected Tim had wanted him to see Tim doing it. Tony wanted to think that Tim could never kill anyone in cold blood, but how much did he really know about this new guy? Cool, confident, self-contained, this Tim was miles away from the one he had known.  And Torchwood didn't seem to be exactly a model for a law-enforcement agency.  
  
He glanced at Ziva again. There was someone trained from birth to keep secrets.  
  
“Ziva? What do you think about Tim?” He hesitated, then bit the bullet. “His character, I mean.”  
  
She turned towards him. “What happened, Tony?”  
  
“I saw him put something in the coffee he gave to the Kass brothers. I swear he wanted me to see it.”  
  
“And you think that was Torchwood's way of not letting the case get to court?” She sighed. “Oh well. It seems to be a day for telling secrets.  No, Tony, Tim wasn't killing them. If you visit the Kass brothers in a few days you'll find that they will have forgotten all about you, Liam, and the dead man. If you visit them in a few weeks,” she shrugged, “God knows what you'll find.”  
  
“How do you know?”  
  
“Mossad knows a little about Torchwood. The story goes that we tried to infiltrate them three times. Each time the agent came back with part of his memory missing and their personalities changed somehow. The last one had lost everything after his bar mitzvah.  He was carrying a note that said something like _you'll have to change the nappies on the next one_.  We learned our lesson.”  
  
“Jesus. And the personality thing?”  
  
“The first agent resigned and moved to Australia, I think to become a farmer. The second one had no memory of Mossad at all. He studied medicine and went to work for the UN in refugee camps. The third one became an artist. I think you'd recognize his name.” He touched his jaw lightly. “Close your mouth and pay attention to the road.”  
  
He had to swallow twice before asking, “do you think they have messed with Tim's mind?”  
  
She burst out laughing, but there was a sad tinge to the laughter. “No, Tony. That's the same Tim we knew. He just got the attention and care we didn't give him.”  
  
He wanted to deny it but couldn't. They had driven Tim away and he had found better friends. But he still wondered about Gibbs' role in all of it. He had really wanted Tim on the team, and for the first years or so he kept them off the Probie's back, but there had been a definite change at some point. Gibbs had started to push Tim away, and he had encouraged both the romance with Abby and then Abby's destructive behavior, not to mention Tony's own fratboy antics. And yet if what Tony had seen in Gibbs' eyes when he looked at Tim was true... well, the whole thing nagged like a abscessed tooth.  
  
“Over there, Tony,” Ziva said, pointing out an open parking space.  
  
As they reached the apartment building they saw Tim and Tish walking up from the opposite direction. They stared at the dilapidated facade.  
  
“I guess yuppification missed this one,” Tim said sardonically.  
  
“And a good thing too,” Tony told him. “No doorman.”  
  
They crossed the street and went in. The lobby was of the old-fashioned kind, with doorbells above each mail box. Tony pressed several at random and waited, hand on the inner door's latch. When it buzzed, he pulled it open and bowed to the others.  
  
“Low tech but efficient,” he said and was pleased to hear Tish's giggle.  
  
Quaderi's apartment was on the second floor towards the end of a dingy corridor smelling strongly of  stale food and mildew. Tony touched the door gently and it swung inwards.  
  
“That's not good,” Tim muttered.  
  
They drew their guns. Tony smashed his hand against the door, sending it crashing against the wall. “NCIS!”  
  
There was no answer. The front room was obsessively clean and orderly; the whole place reeked of Lysol, from the tiny galley kitchen to the cheap bookcase near the single window.  There wasn't a single hiding place big enough for a cat, much less a man. Tim gestured towards what had to be the bedroom door. Tony nodded.  
  
They stood on either side of the door, backs flat against the wall. Tim reached down and turned the doorknob, then shouldered the door open and let the momentum carry him. Tony followed, gun sweeping  the opposite side of the room.  
  
The room was as clean and orderly as the living room. Well, Tony thought, except for the mess someone had made of Nick Quaderi.


	9. Chapter 9

Tim tossed his jacket over the back of the nearest chair. God, he was tired. His body was starting to suffer after four days of almost no sleep, even though he was using all the energy conservation techniques he had learned from his clan mentors.  The worst thing was that he wasn't sure he would be able to sleep tonight either.  
  
Working as a team with Tony, Ziva, and Tish had gone fantastically well, but Gibbs was always there in the background, and he had been aware of the man's presence or absence every moment, as if Gibbs had been a part of his own body and mind. That had never happened before, even at the height of his infatuation with Jack. The Aa'el believed a soul could love many times, but _belong_ only once. It terrified Tim that his soul could be forever bound to someone who didn't want it.  
  
He decided on a quick shower before bed. He and Tony had stayed with Quaderi's body until Ducky and Jimmy arrived. He could still smell blood and decomposition; one of the disadvantages of all the work the family psychosurgeons had done to help him release the abilities he had unconsciously suppressed as a child was that his sense of smell had become extremely acute. Gwen was only half-kidding when she called him the Torchwood bloodhound.  
  
He used the hotel's very expensive toiletries to dispel the memories. When he got back to Cardiff he would have to throw out everything in his bathroom because from now on he would associate the scent of sandalwood with decomposing bodies. Well, at least Jack would be happy. The man swore up one side and down the other that sandalwood distorted the scent of twentieth-century pheromones.  
  
Tossing the wet towels to the floor, he walked back into the bedroom, dismissing the idea of his usual sweat pants and t-shirt. There were nights when even the thinnest, softest cotton felt like sandpaper against his _ta'saiat_. He reached back to stroke the delicate tracery of semi-sentient wires embedded directly under his skin from shoulder to buttock, proclaiming to all that knew how to look that he was an adult Aa'el of the  Ta'tai family of the Ta'tau'el clan.  The flare that feathered out from the main design to wrap around his hip announced to all and sundry that he had accrued great honor to his family and clan in fair battle. Tim chuckled bitterly.  Genocide was a triumph he could do without.  
  
“You're thinking too loudly.”  
  
He turned. Ianto leaned against the jamb of the connecting door.  He wore sweat pants, but was bare-chested and barefooted.  
  
“Sorry.” Tim glanced at the other connecting door. “Bad?”  
  
“Not enough to bother Tish, especially since Martha's there. Jack picked it up. You know how he is.” He extended his hand. “Come to bed, Tim.”  
  
Tim took Ianto's hand and allowed himself to be led into the other room. Jack was lounging on the half-acre of pillows and duvets the Hays-Adams considered an adequate bed. He opened his arms to Tim, much as he had done to Ducky. It struck Tim that in anyone else the gesture would seem ridiculously cheesy, but coming from Jack it simply offered the recipient whatever he needed most. For Tim, it had always meant forgiveness and safety, but most of all, acceptance.  
  
He crawled into Jack's arms, pushing his face into the curve of Jack's neck and inhaling deeply. He felt Ianto settle in behind Jack and wrap his arms around both of them. He sighed with pleasure and relaxed into their hold. After a few minutes – breathe in, breathe out, letting Jack's scent soothe him – he felt Jack's fingers come to rest lightly against the center of the  _ta'saiat_. The wires hummed under his touch. Jack was one of a handful of _aut-Aa'el_ who could guide _aiat_ energy, communicating with it at an elemental level. When Tim had asked where he had learned to do it, Jack had smirked at him, leaving the tale to Tim's imagination, but Tim had seen the brief flash of sadness under the smirk. He had never asked again.  
  
“Tony drooled over my sonic screwdriver,” he whispered, feeling the energy flow along the wires, gently burning the pattern into his skin-memory. “I wonder what he would think if I told him how I got it.”   
  
“You fought a great enemy and you won an honorable victory,” Jack ran his fingertips over the flare. “The _aiat_ wouldn't have done this otherwise.”  
  
“I destroyed a whole race!”  
  
Jack pressed his lips to his forehead. “The 456 were psychic parasites, Tim.  If you hadn't pushed the Doctor into action they would have continued to feed on those kids until they died and then go looking for more.”  
  
Tim giggled. “Pushed into action. That's a nice way to describe a mutiny.”  
  
“He forgave both of you eventually, didn't he?”  
  
“He didn't speak to us for a month.” Tim wriggled until he could throw one of his legs over Ianto's and settled even more comfortably into their embrace. “I was ready to beg, but the TARDIS said we just needed to give him time to get over his snit. Snit!”  
  
Ianto snorted. “Well, it was. Sometimes he makes too much of his damn sensibilities.”  
  
“He stayed in the library the whole time. The TARDIS said he was looking through every book and database to see if he could have done something differently. He didn't find anything.” Tim yawned. “When he came out he gave me the screwdriver and took me to Barcelona. The planet, not the city.”  
  
It was Jack's turn to chuckle. “Usual apology from the Doc. A quick swing by the fleshpots. At least you got there. The rest of us never did.”  
  
“It was amazing...” The sentence trailed off. “Sleep now.”  
  
He felt Jack and Ianto rearrange themselves on either side of him. “Go ahead, Tim,” Jack whispered. “Sleep.”  
  



	10. Chapter 10

Tony sniffed theatrically at the cup in Tim's hand. “Probie, I'll trade you my first-born son for that coffee.”  
  
“Get back to me when you have one of those,” Tim snickered. “But you're in luck. Ianto's taken over the coffee maker in the break room. He just started a new pot. And there might even be pastries.”  
  
“Be right back.”  
  
He headed around the desks at a trot, chased by Tim's laughter. He reached the break room just in time to see Jimmy Palmer reaching for a tray full of Italian goodies.  
  
“Touch that sfogliatella, gremlin, and I'll dissect your fingers.”  
  
“Come on, Tony!” Jimmy mock-whined. “I'm a growing boy!”  
  
“Then grab one of the cannoli or that bombolone. The sfogliatella is mine.” He turned to Ianto, who had just poured a tall cup for Tish. “Could I get one of those?”  
  
Ianto filled one of the cups, then studied him for a moment before adding this and that from some small containers next to the cups. Tony nearly grabbed it out of his hands, brought it up to his face, and inhaled deeply.  
  
“I think I've found your secret.” He sipped. “I know I've found your secret.”  
  
“What secret?”  
  
“How you seduced Jack. It was the coffee, right?”  
  
“That was the opening gambit,” Ianto said blandly. “But it was the pteranodon that sealed the deal." His eyes unfocused for a brief second. "Jack's here."  
  
Tony watched him run out and shook his head. “I'm not even going to ask.” He put the sfogliatella on  a plate, considered the tray for a minute, and added a cannolo with chocolate shavings.  “Did we get anything overnight?”  
  
“Mimi thinks she's found Quaderi's girlfriend.” Tish said.  
  
“And we got the autopsy done,” Jimmy added. “There's probably going to be a briefing soon.”  
  
“OK. I'll need to check the morning reports before then.”  
  
He grabbed his plate and headed back to the bullpen. As he came around Gibbs' desk he saw Abby plop herself down on Ziva's chair. Nothing strange about that; Abby came upstairs regularly in the mornings before work really started. But for some reason he had gotten the impression that she had picked something up from his desk before she sat down. Then he wondered exactly when he had stopped trusting Abby.  
  
“Hey, Abs.”  
  
“Hey, Tony. Where's Ziva?”  
  
“Should be in soon.”  
  
“Oh. Ok.” She jumped up. “I'll see you later, then.”  
  
He watched her walk to the elevators. Tony waited until the doors had closed, then slid his chair to the computer terminal behind his desk. Accessing the security camera recordings, he selected the one for the bullpen, timing it to ten minutes before his arrival. He watched himself chat with Tim and leave for the break room. A minute or so later Abby came out of the elevators. They had a brief conversation, a rather uncomfortable one, if he was any judge of body language. Then Jack arrived, and it was clear that Tim's attention had shifted completely away from Abby. Jack laughed, grabbed Tim by the neck, pulled him closer, and planted a smack right on his mouth as Ianto rolled his eyes at his husband's antics. The three men went upstairs.  
  
Abby, though...  Abby had grabbed Tim's abandoned coffee cup and put it in the pocket of the lab coat. She must have heard Tony coming, because she had glanced towards Gibbs' desk, then hurried to Ziva's desk to sit down.  
  
Tony didn't bother with the elevators. He ran down the stairs and burst into Abby's lab just as she was swabbing the edge of the cup.  
  
“What the hell do you think you're doing, Abs?”  
  
“Tony, Tony, don't you see?” She seemed more manic than usual. “I can run a DNA test on Tim and it'll be normal and he'll see those people are lying to him and he'll come back to us like he should.”  
  
He stared at her blankly. “You're gone nuts.”  
  
“But, look, Tony, it's not possible that Tim's an alien, I mean, the whole alien thing is so cool and I can't wait to meet one but Tim's not one of them, and he needs to be home where he belongs, with us!”  
  
He grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her onto one of the stools. “Abby, I watched Tim jump off a beam fifteen stories above ground, use a cable to swing himself into a half-built floor and start running before he touched the concrete.The Tim we knew is gone, alien or not, and he's not coming back. Why should he? You used him and lied to Gibbs about him, I mocked him... We treated him like shit, Abby. He has no reason to come back.”  
  
“But Tony...”  
  
“Besides, I don't think you'll be allowed to run those tests.” He looked towards one of the monitors. “Right, Mimi?”  
  
The screen flared to life as the Torchwood T appeared. “You are correct, Tony. Ms. Sciuto, pay attention.”  
  
 A street scene appeared on the screen. At first it reminded Tony of Sciacca, the port town in Sicily where his family had emigrated from, small houses built wall to wall climbing up a steep cliff. But the ocean coruscated emerald under two suns, and the houses were built of something that resembled transparent marble, and feathered serpents hovered lazily overhead. On the ebony beach, seven tall, oddly elegant beings and one human surrounded a lone figure. The human wore, of all things, a blue suit and running shoes, and had a goofily proud look on his face. The lone figure in the middle was Tim.  
  
“This is Tim's adulthood ceremony,” Mimi informed them. “His family welcomed him and entered him into their clan's genealogical records. I suggest you accept the facts, Ms. Sciuto. Actually, let me rephrase that. I don't give a damn if you accept it or not. I will be watching your every step. If you try to interfere with Tim again I will make sure you regret it.”


	11. Chapter 11

Tim read through the documents Mimi had assembled. _You're sure about this?_  
  
 _As much as I can be. The Doctor erased whole sectors of the Valiant's databases, especially those dealing with the Toclafane_. There was a long pause. _And Jack_.  
  
 _There are things we don't need to know_. Tim sighed. _But that means we'll be going into it blind, except for whatever Martha,Jack, and Tish can remember. I hope Ducky knows what he's doing_. He heard the door open behind him and blanked out the screen. “Hey. Tony, Ziva.”  
  
“Probie.” Tony handed him a crushed coffee cup. “Don't leave things lying around.”  
  
Tim looked at the cup then back at Tony. “Abby.”  
  
“She thinks that if she can prove you're human you'll come home,” Ziva told him. “She came to my place last night, asked me to help her. I refused. She stomped off.”  
  
“SOP for Abby.” Tim said.   
  
“Where are the others?” Ziva asked him.   
  
Tim looked at Tony, who nodded; Ziva had, against all expectation, come down on their side. “With Vance. Should be here...”    
  
The door opened. They watched as Gibbs and Jack swept through, trying very hard to give the impression that they were _not_ jockeying for position. Behind them came Ianto, face blank but eyes filled with laughter.  
  
“Gibbs. Captain.” Ziva took a deep breath before continuing. “I spoke to my father last night. He gave me some information to pass on to you.”  
  
“Why?” Jack asked. “Mossad doesn't usually hand out presents.”  
  
“Liam's handler in Mossad was my father's best friend. Three days ago, he told my father Liam had requested a meet. Tel Aviv police found him that night. He had been shot several times but he lived long enough to tell my father that Liam had to be stopped.” She looked at him levelly. “He also begged him to, and my father asked me to quote this exactly, _tell the Torchwood bastard_.”  
  
Tim saw a small, sad smile twist Jack's lips before he answered her. “I am sorry to hear Reuben ben Ezra is dead. Please pass on my condolences to your father when you next speak to him.”  
  
“You knew Uncle Reuben?”  
  
“He and I spent a couple of nervous months in the Sinai chasing some very bad news.” This time the smile was broader, full of good memories. “I learned a number of very creative curses in Hebrew.”  
  
“But that was...” Ziva stopped and turned back to Tim. “Could you ask your computer to display the file I uploaded this morning?”  
  
“Ask her yourself.” The tart reply came from the speakers. “And she has a name.”  
  
“I am sorry, Mimi. Could you please display the file?”  
  
The screen displayed an official identification. Ziva stepped closer. “Michael Rivkin, code name Liam. Went into Mossad straight from the army. Specialized in infiltrating Muslim terrorist cells from the former Soviet republics. Eight months ago his youngest brother was killed in a Palestinian rocket attack. Three days after the funeral, Michael went on a mission to locate and infiltrate a Chechen group that had been selling Russian ordnance, small time stuff. Rumor had it they had gotten their hands on something really big. Michael thought it was plutonium.”  
  
“You knew him,” Ianto said softly.  
  
“We trained together. We always thought...” She shook her head. “Not relevant. Especially now.”  
  
Gibbs touched her shoulder briefly. “Did Eli say anything else?”  
  
She shook her head again. “He sent everything they collected on the Chechen group, just in case. I'm sure Mimi has already looked through it.”  
  
“And got a piece of the puzzle.” There was a great deal of satisfaction in Mimi's voice. “Nick Quaderi has been seen around D.C. with a beautiful woman identified only as Shakira. In the list of names Mossad provided there's one Shakira Utsiyeva, former captain in the Russian army. Shakira Utsiyeva signed a lease for a house in Anacostia six months ago.”  
  
“Address?” Gibbs barked.   
  
Tim judged it was time to step in. “Boss?”  
  
Two heads turned towards him. He heard Tony's muted snicker. In any other circumstances he would have been amused too. “Before we go looking for Captain Utsiyeva, there's something else you need to know.”  
  
The slight curve of Jack's eyebrow told Tim he hadn't missed Tim's deliberate ambiguity. “What is it?”  
  
“Martha and Ducky finished their autopsy on Quaderi. He bled to death. He was sliced by multiple blades moving very fast.  Whoever did it was able to keep him alive for hours while they worked.”   
  
Jack took a step back as if trying to escape the words. Ianto took Jack's right hand in both of his and gripped hard. The sensation seemed to brace the Captain.  
  
“Where are Martha and Tish?”  
  
“With Ducky. Tish wanted to see if there was a chance to retrieve some of the memories she lost after the accident.” He forced himself to stare Jack down. “She needs to, boss. And we need the information. Martha is contacting other survivors. She also gave me the passwords to the alpha-tardis datafiles. Mimi has been scouring them for anything that will help.”  
  
Jack took a deep breath. “All right. We can...”  
  
Mimi broke in. “Sorry, Boss. Whatever it is can wait. Police report coming in. 911 call from neighbours about a woman screaming. It's Captain Utsiyeva's address.”


	12. Chapter 12

“You guys really want to go in there?” The cop standing guard by the small house's back door pointed over his shoulder at the room. “It looks like a slaughterhouse.”  
  
Tony patted the man's shoulder as he passed. “All part of the service.”  
  
The door led directly into a small eat-in kitchen. Slaughterhouse was right, Tony thought as he saw the walls. And the drapes. And the furniture. And the shreds of bone and flesh that used to be a human being on the carpet.  
  
“Jesus Christ. Gotta tell you, Probie, I always hoped aliens were more like E.T. and less like Predator.”  
  
“Actually, the Toclafane are human.”  
  
One look at the man standing in the corridor leading to the front of the house and Tony realized exactly how much he had been subconsciously underestimating Jack Harkness. The extroverted charmer was gone and in his place was the man that even Mossad would think twice before crossing. It was the eyes that gave him away; the blue, usually warm and full of emotion, was flat and cold as a silvered mirror.  
  
“Something human did this?”  
  
“Not human as you and I would define it,” Jack conceded. “But human nevertheless. Tim?”  
  
“There were two people sitting at the table here. The Toclafane came in through that window. This one distracted him long enough to let the other one get away.”  He started down the corridor, then backed into the kitchen, almost like following a trail. “She tried to run to the front door but suddenly backtracked and went out the back.”  
  
“Can you track her?”  
  
Tim  pulled out his toy. “With a little help.”  
  
They followed him out the door. Tony noticed Ziva and Ianto talking to some bystanders. He whistled to get their attention and pointed at Tim. He looked around for Gibbs, who had been running interference for them with the local cops, but couldn't find him among the uniformed mob crawling over the yard. He pulled out his phone and texted his boss a quick message then fell in line behind Ianto and Ziva.  
  
Tim led them down the street, past the local Catholic Church – St Theresa, Tony noted absently as he sprinted past the slightly shabby building – and out onto the main road. Anacostia was undergoing one of its periodic fits of road construction; half the pavement was torn up, and there was equipment and piles of supplies all the way down to the freeway. The chase became an obstacle course.  
  
“She'll be trapped between the freeway and the river!” Tony shouted at Tim as he jumped over some sewer pipes.  
  
“She's aiming for the subway,” Jack said, pointing to the  spot where the road split in two, one climbing to the freeway and another going under it. “They're probably keeping the heaviest equipment in it. Toclafane sensors can be confused in small enclosed spaces, especially if they're crowded. It's the best chance she has.”  
  
Tony was momentarily confused and then it clicked. “English, subway, American, underpass.  Got it. What the hell are we chasing anyway?”  
  
Before anyone had a chance to answer, Tony saw it. Something that looked like a metal basketball   hovered in midair at the entrance to the underpass. There were lights going around it like a belt and others that looked almost like zippers running upwards to end on a diamond-shaped plate at the top. Sharp spikes and pincers holding wickedly curved knives protruded from several places. Every blade and spike dripped blood. The only thing the ugly thing had going for it was that it hadn't noticed them yet.  
  
“Shit. And you call that human?”  
  
Jack gave him a hard look. “Spread out. Some of those spikes carry lasers, so let's not give it easy targets. You, Tim, and Ziva aim for the sensor belt. It's heavily protected but impacts from several directions will keep him off balance. Ianto and I will use our manipulators on the lifter port between those pincers at the bottom. It has to remain open when the Toclafane is in the air.”  
  
Tony drew out his gun. It struck him that in other circumstances he would have found the situation amusing, but the bodies of Quaderi and the unidentified man back in the house had taken all the humor out of it.  He moved back, putting some distance between himself and Ziva on one side and Ianto on the other, and waited until Jack and  Ianto were in position.  
  
“Now!”  
  
Tony aimed at the lights and fired at the same time Tim and Ziva did. The Toclafane rocked under the onslaught. Jack and Ianto stood directly opposite each other, arms held out. Tony couldn't see anything, but he could hear the metallic whine of machinery under stress. The Toclafane spun and one of the spikes came up pointed directly at Tony. He dove out of the way as the laser beam made a blackened, smoking mess in the ground he had just vacated. They didn't have enough bullets, Tony thought, as the sphere bobbled again; they needed a platoon of marines with IARs, not three people with handguns. A second laser beam shot out, its aim  thrown off by a perfectly placed shot from Ziva, and huge chunks of concrete flew out of the overpass wall. A piece struck Ianto a glancing blow and drove him to his knees. Tony saw Tim trying to reload his Sig.  
  
We're going to lose this one, Tony told himself.  
  
And then all of a sudden Gibbs was there, popping in _freaking out of nowhere_ , arm raised to point the wrist strap he was wearing at the Toclafane. The metallic whine became a howl, and the sphere rocked violently, as if trying to escape and finally, _finally_ ,  it gave a convulsive heave and fell.  
  
In the sudden silence, Tony heard the Captain's icy words very, very clearly. “You had damn better explain yourself, Gibbs. Fast.”


	13. Chapter 13

The cold lump that had settled in Tim's  stomach at Gibbs' appearance grew to iceberg size as he watched Jack draw his Webley and point it at Gibbs' head.  
  
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn't execute you right here.”  
  
Gibbs ignored the gun and knelt by the Toclafane, prodding at the metal plate at the top. There was a grinding noise and the sphere opened, the upper sections opening like petals. Jack almost flinched, but then came to lean over Gibbs' shoulder and look down at the sphere.  
  
“Empty.” Gibbs told him. “We need to get this to a safe place. I don't trust either one of our governments with this technology.”  
  
“You still haven't answered my question.”  
  
“Francine wouldn't like it.”  
  
The two men stared at each other for a few moments. Tim thought he heard Ianto mutter something about measuring tapes but he was still trying to wrap his mind around what Gibbs had said. Francine Jones, Tish's and Martha's mother, had also been a prisoner in the Valiant, forced to serve the Master as maid and sometimes cook, chained every night like a slave or a dog. There were even mentions in the files of her being tortured for helping Jack stage a rebellion that had failed. In many ways she was Jack's surrogate mother, but from the look on Jack's face she had never mentioned Gibbs to him.  
  
“All right,” Jack finally broke the silence. “Where do we take this?”  
  
“My place. Basement is freshly cleaned. Tim can set up his equipment down there.”  
  
Tim saw his chance and grabbed it. “I'm going to need Abby.” He got twin glares, but stood his ground. “Mimi doesn't have any remote hands here, so she won't be able to help with the precision work. Besides, if we exclude Abby she's apt to go off like a rocket with a faulty gyroscope.”  
  
Gibbs nodded. “You got a point.”  
  
“I'll call Martha and have her meet us there.” Ianto said. “The need to know list just got a whole lot shorter. Do you trust director Vance?”  
  
Gibbs thought about it for a moment. “Yeah.”  
  
“Ziva and I will go get the cars,” Tony said, holding out his hand to Ianto. “Can we transport that thing in the trunk or will it wake up and try to fry us?”  
  
Gibbs reached into the sphere and yanked out a few wires. “It won't now.”  
  
Tim saw Jack's free hand clench hard enough to make the knuckles stand out starkly white. A little sound of protest escaped him. Gibbs looked up and their eyes met, and what Tim saw there made his breath stutter. He prayed, focusing through the _ta'saiat_ , hoping Jack would pick up the unspoken words. It felt like years had passed before Jack reholstered the Webley.  
  
“Tim, Ianto, damage control,” he barked.  
  
It didn't take very long. Whether it was because the locals were spooked by all the cops flooding into the neighborhood or because the entrance to the freeway and the underpass were both closed due to the construction, the area was nearly deserted. Two vagrants were treated to some retcon-laced coffee and fed new memories about watching a movie crew at work.  
  
When Tony and Ziva brought the cars as close to the underpass as they could manage, they loaded the sphere into the back of the rental SUV. Tim scrambled into the back seat. Reaching into the secure space below the seat, he retrieved his laptop and powered it up. _Mimi, set up a link to Francine Jones' computer but don't activate it until I ask for it_. “Jack, I need your phone codes.”  
  
“What are you up to, Irish?”  
  
“I'm planning to set up a secure call from this laptop to Mrs. Jones. If Gibbs has gotten out of the stone age I'll use his tv to enhance the image. No chance of mistake one way or the other.”   
  
“I think you're trying to manipulate me,” Jack said, offering him his phone. “but this time I'll let you. Go ahead.”  
  
When they got to Gibbs' place, Tim let the others wrestle with the Toclafane and went into the living room. The others had already arrived. Ducky had taken advantage of his long friendship with Gibbs to act as host and coffee  and tea had been made and scones set out. Tim grinned when he saw the large flat screen above the fireplace. It only took a few seconds to connect it to the laptop.  
  
“Martha, I need you to call your mother and ask her to power up her laptop.”  He cut off her startled question. “Jack needs to talk to her. It's important, Martha. Year-that-never-was important.”  
  
“Tim, what's going on?” Tish asked, her voice high and anxious.  
  
“We need her to do something for us.” He took her hand and held it tightly. “It's important, Tish.”  
  
Tish nodded. “All right.”  
  
Martha pulled her cell phone from her purse and pressed a single number. “Mama?... Yes, I know what time it is, but Jack needs to talk to you... it's important, Mama, and we need your help... the case we came to Washington for? We think it might have something to do with the Valiant... could you please turn on your laptop and let Tim and Mimi set up a call?... We'll be careful, I promise.” She ended the call. “I hope you and Jack know what you're doing.”  
  
A few seconds later, the screen above the fireplace displayed Francine Jones' face. She looked cool and haughty, but during Tish's illness Tim had learned to read the fear and anger underneath. “Timothy, what in the world is going on?”  
  
“Jack needs you to do something for him...”  
  
He stopped, realizing he had lost her. She was looking over his shoulder, her eyes wide and suddenly filled with tears. He turned to see Gibbs come in, the others right behind him. He saw her and smiled.  
  
“Hello, my lady.”  
  
“Shadow? You're alive!”  She was crying openly, but her face was filled with joy. “You made it. Thank God, thank God, you made it!”


	14. Chapter 14

Ice clinked  as Ducky poured a little water into the Old Forester Birthday bourbon and stirred. “Drink this, Jack.”  
  
The Captain dutifully sipped, grimacing before passing the glass back. “The things you people put into your bodies.”  
  
Tony noted the odd phrasing and put it in the mental folder he had labeled _weird stuff that doesn't add up about Jack Harkness_. Except that now there was another folder right next to it: _weird stuff that doesn't add up about Leroy Jethro Gibbs_.  
  
Take Mrs. Jones. When Jack had asked her if she recognized Gibbs, she had replied, in tones that could have frosted glass, _of course I do, he's my shadow_. If Tony had been the kind of idiot that jumped to conclusions, he would have jumped at the wrong one, because that _my_ had been incredibly possessive. But Martha and Tish had thrown themselves at Gibbs, hugging him until he could barely breathe, and even Jack had seemed to defrost. It was obvious to Tony that there was a bond between the Jones women and Jack that somehow had expanded to include Gibbs. And then Gibbs had raised his arm to stroke Tish's hair, and Jack had gotten a close-up view of the strap around Gibbs' arm, and he had gone pale as a sheet and stumbled into Ianto's arms.  
  
Jack settled back, resting a hand on Ianto's thigh as his husband perched comfortably on one of the broad low arms of the leather club chair. He stared at Gibbs as if trying to get answers without having to ask the questions. Finally he sighed.  
  
“How did you get it?”  
  
Gibbs touched the strap around his wrist. “He gave it to me before he died.”  
  
Now it was Ianto who sighed. “What happened?”  
  
Gibbs looked around the room silently. Tony had had enough. He set down his mug with a hard smack. “Look. I understand there are things in the past none of you want to talk about, but if that thing downstairs means that the past has come back to haunt us, we need to know what the hell if going on!”  
  
The door bell rang, putting an almost comical exclamation point to Tony's outburst. Ziva went out to the hallway and returned with Vance, Abby, and Jimmy Palmer. Gibbs had called Vance while on route, and from what Tony had heard of the conversation, the NCIS director had not been amused by the summons. He didn't seem much happier now.  
  
“What's so important that it couldn't wait for tomorrow's briefing, Gibbs?”  
  
“There's not going to be a briefing tomorrow, Director.” Jack told him. “We're going dark. You will be kept in the loop as necessary, but nobody else.”  
  
“There is no way I can allow that, Captain.”  
  
“Leon,” Gibbs said wearily. “Captain Harkness has all the authority he needs to do it without your permission. You know that. But we need you to do it right.”  
  
Vance looked from one man to the other. He was beaten, and he knew it, but he wasn't going down without a fight. “And I'm supposed to do this on your say so?”  
  
“No. Sit down, Director.” Jack waited until everyone had found a chair or a spot on the rug. “I'm sure you remember the murder of Prime Minister Harold Saxon by his wife Lucy. What you don't remember, what most people on Earth don't remember, is that Harold Saxon was not human. He was an alien, a very powerful one. He was also a complete sociopath. He controlled the Earth and everyone on it for a year from the UNIT ship _Valiant_.”  
  
“What kind of fairy tale are you trying to sell, Harkness?” Vance looked ready to explode. “If you think...”  
  
“You're like voodoo honey all silvery and gold,” Jimmy Palmer whispered, wrapping his arms around his knees and rocking. “So here it comes, the sound of drums. Here comes the drums, here come the drums.”  
  
Tish crawled from where she sat next to Tim and pulled him into a tight hug. “No, Jimmy, no. He's gone, really, truly. He's gone.”  
  
Jack gestured towards Jimmy. “Some remember. Nightmares. Sudden panic attacks when they hear certain songs or sounds. Thank any and all Gods you believe in, Leon, that you don't.”  
  
“But you remember?”  
  
“Saxon used a paradox machine to alter time. When it was destroyed, time reset to the moment it was activated, erasing everything in between. But the Valiant was outside its field of influence. I was a prisoner there. So were Martha and Tish. And Gibbs.”  
  
Tony gave himself a pat on the back. He would bet his next paycheck that that was how Gibbs had met Francine Jones. Then he remembered their reunion and shivered.  
  
“How did you get there, Jethro?” Ducky asked.  
  
“I was part of a resistance network helping Martha.” He chuckled as everyone looked at the doctor. “Yeah, her. Looks like she's never done anything harder than a double shift in a hospital, and she's the toughest alpha-female you'll ever meet. Literally saved the world. Saxon's men were closing in on her. We planted false trails, led them away. W... I got unlucky.”  
  
Ziva tapped her own wrist. “And that?”  
  
“I met another prisoner. He was dying. Radiation poisoning. He gave it to me and taught me how to use it.” He stroked the leather absently. “The lower levels of the Valiant were as close to hell as I care to get. This thing let me fight back.”  
  
“How?” challenged Vance.  
  
Tony grinned at the look in Vance's face as Gibbs disappeared from his spot next to Ducky on the couch to reappear behind him, one arm wrapped around his neck.  
  
“Like this.” He let Vance go and walked back to the couch. “After a while, the guards walked warily. There was one sergeant who was always boasting of his prowess with the ladies, the rapist bastard. He whipped the soldiers who refused to patrol the corridors alone. One night they found him hanging upside down and naked in front of the auxiliary engine exhaust, with third degree burns from waist to knees, screaming about being attacked by a shadow.”  
  
“The military types were too scared to tell Saxon,” Tish said. “But all the prisoners and the slaves knew. Some of them even prayed to the Shadow of Death.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has taken so long. These days the pain is intermittent, which is nice, but when it does arrive it kicks me into next week, both physically and mentally.

Tim aimed the micro camera towards the back of the sphere, curving the flexible wand around a thick cluster of cables hanging loosely from a long, narrow box-like structure perched on a hinged bracket.  
  
“Hold on.” Abby was staring at the laptop screen. “Move it back and to the left. There. That's a remote control.”  
  
Tim looked up briefly. “So it is.”  
  
Abby threw up her hands. “I don't get it, Timmy. This thing is so sophisticated that we won't be able to match it for centuries, maybe, and it's controlled by something meant for a toy car?”  
  
“Be fair, Abby,” Tim chuckled. “It's a bit more complex than that. Besides, it's only a temporary measure. Toclafane spheres were meant to be controlled from the inside.”  
  
She gave him her best _what are you babbling about_ look. “Your Captain Harkness said the Toclafane were human. A human can't fit in there.”  
  
“It can if it has no body.” He said absently as he fiddled with the camera. “Abby, I'm going to need the smallest screwdriver.... Abby?”  
  
Her only answer was a strangled little sound halfway between a moan and a scream. He looked at her over his shoulder. She was pale as a ghost, one of her hands wrapped around the base of her neck and the other touching her temple.  Well, when it came to technology, Abby was one hell of a fast study.  
  
“Saxon did that to people?” she whispered.  
  
“No, they did it to themselves. The Toclafane were trying to escape their future and came up with that solution. Lots of very advanced technology combined with all the antisocial behaviors of psychopathic children. Saxon just used their talents.”  
  
She sat down with a thump. Resting her elbows on the table, she hid her face in her palms. “Your world isn't very pretty, Timmy.”  
  
“My world is no different than yours, Abby.  You just blind yourself to those parts you don't want to see.”  
  
Her reaction was bog-standard Abby. “Oh Timmy, how can you say that?” She jumped up and paced, hands flapping about. “Just because I ignore things doesn't mean I don't know they're there.”  
  
“And you try to rearrange reality so they go away, and get pissed off when people don't fall in line.” He raised a hand to stop the flow. “Look, Abby. Let's not argue about it. I need your help to learn all that we can learn about this thing. After this is all over, you can chose to forget it all.”  
  
“And how do you suggest I do that?”  
  
“Better living through chemistry. We can make you forget all this, give you the memories you want. But it would be your choice.” She shook her head emphatically, but Tim could tell she wasn't as sure as she wanted to appear. “Think about it. Now. Smallest screwdriver?”  
  
They worked efficiently together. Their lab had been improvised using Tim's laptop, the small tool case Abby kept in her car – trust her to keep a top-of-the-line computer repair kit next to the jumper cables, Tim thought – and Ducky's medical bag, which had provided latex gloves, scalpels, and chlorhexidine.  After extracting the remote control, Tim handed it to Abby, who placed it on a metal plate they had liberated from Gibbs' shelves and sterilized.  She took it apart and they studied each part.  
  
“Nothing that shouldn't be there,” Abby grumped. “We need access to the lab, Tim. You know DNA  can hide almost anywhere.”  
  
Tim reached across her to tap a quick sequence into his laptop. A shallow drawer slid out. “Let's start scanning. Start with the largest piece.” He took out the sonic screwdriver and adjusted some of the settings. “Mimi, 4D mapping and genetic material analysis.”  
  
Tim put the piece of plastic on the shelf and aimed the screwdriver at it. The laptop beeped twice and data began to scroll. After a few minutes the data stopped and the laptop beeped once. Tim exchanged the piece for another one and the process began all over again. The fourth piece, however, produced a slightly different result. As Tim laid a flat triangular piece on the drawer, the laptop chirruped.   
  
“And the winner is...” he pressed a button on the screwdriver. “You got that, Mimi?”  
  
“Yes. I'll break a few laws and run the results through all the DNA  databases on my list, but it'll take sometime, even if I use Ms. Sciuto's search algorithms. Which, by the way, go Abby!” The laptop produced a brief burst of applause. “It's as good as Tim's Interpol one.”  
  
“Thank you.” Abby sounded almost dazed by the praise. “She threatened me, you know” she whispered to Tim.  
  
“Mimi's very protective of her people. And she doesn't threaten. She makes statements of fact.” Tim put the sonic screwdriver back in his pocket. “Let's go upstairs and see how far along they are with supper. I am starving.”  
  
“Me too.”   
  
Tim bowed her towards the stairs. Abby curtsied, giggling, and started up. Tim followed, both congratulating himself on being able to talk to Abby in a calm, adult fashion and wondering if what he'd said had penetrated her psychological defenses. He hoped so; Abby needed to grow up, or Jack would make sure she wouldn't remember a single moment of her encounter with Torchwood.  
  
He was almost to the door when his cell phone pinged softly. He took it out and activated the screen.  _Mimi?_  
  
 _I'm sending you the data Jack wanted on the Thals. It was very cleverly hidden but not blocked, so I'm assuming the Doctor thought someone might need it at some point. It's bad, Tim. It's really bad._


	16. Chapter 16

The spatula,  wielded efficiently by Tish, whipped down to connect with Tony's hand.  He yelped and sucked on his knuckles.  
  
“Hands off  until dinner,” she said calmly, not even bothering to look at him. “If you're that hungry, grab some cheese and water biscuits.”  
  
“But...”  
  
The mock-whine cut off as Tony watched Abby and Tim come through the basement door. Abby, grinning widely, made for the dining room, where Ziva, Martha, and Jimmy were working their way through several plates of snacks, while Tim headed to the back of the solarium.    
  
A few years earlier, Gibbs had found the cottage's original floor plan and had discovered the solarium had been meant to be an extension of the kitchen. After consultation with the local historical society, he had knocked down the wall and replaced it with an arch similar to the one that opened between the kitchen and the dining room. From the point of view of watching the action, Tony approved of  the remodeling, because damn if the Probie didn't look downright grim.  
  
Gibbs, Jack, Ianto, and Ducky had retreated to the sitting area near the French doors leading to the deck after Leon had gone back to the Yard to ride herd on what Tony mentally called the normal investigation. There didn't seem to be much conversation going on. Jack seemed almost to drowse, sprawling against Ianto in the loveseat, while Gibbs and Ducky occupied the matching armchairs. When Tim reached them he simply handed Jack his cell phone and waited, standing at parade rest.  
  
“That is not good,” Tish said, looking over Tony's shoulder.   
  
“How do you know?”  
  
“Jack's default mode towards Tim is _indulgent flirt_. Tim's default mode towards Jack is _pseudo-submissive flirt_.” Tony could almost hear quotation marks in her voice. “When they move into _Captain_ and _soldier_ is when you have to start worrying.”  
  
Tony nodded, but his attention had shifted to Gibbs. The boss was keeping his eyes on his beer bottle, but Tony could see he had gone from comfortable to rigid as soon as he had heard Tim's footsteps.  
  
“I'm going to have to do something about that,” he murmured.  
  
“Count me in,” Tish told him. “I don't like seeing Tim unhappy.”  
  
He grinned at her then sobered up quickly as he watched the group in the solarium get to their feet and march – that was the only word that fit – towards them.   
  
“There goes dinner,” Tish said resignedly. “Good thing I made stew. We can reheat it later.”  
  
“We're going somewhere?”   
  
She gave him a Ianto-worthy eyeroll. “Oh yeah.”  
  
Jack barreled past them into the dining room. “Martha!”  
  
The doctor broke off her conversation with Ziva to glance at her boss. “Yes, Jack?”  
  
“I have a job for the medical staff, plus,” he pointed at Abby, “one of the two computer geeks. Mimi managed to break the encryption on some of the files the Doc left behind in the old UNIT computers.”  
  
“The ones you stole?”  
  
He shrugged. “They weren't using them. The salient point, Nightingale, is that she found out why Liam is interested in the Thals.”  
  
“Oh, Lord.” Martha took a big gulp of the wine she was holding. “One of his damn secrets.”  
  
“I think he didn't seriously mean to keep it secret because Mimi found the files and broke the encryption in less than a week. Long story short. Once upon a time, two nations in the planet Skaros went to war.”  
  
“Jack, no!”  
  
“It seems that at some point the Kaleds captured one of the Thal science facilities. The scientists were taken to Davros's complex near the Lake of Mutations to work on his new creations. After the war ended, the Doc relocated the scientists and their families. A small group came to the States and another went to Canada. They farm and raise sheep for wool and chickens for eggs. They are gardeners and environmentalists, artists and emergency ambulance volunteers. Which is all brilliant except that they are extremely long lived by human standards.”  
  
“And they know how to make Daleks.”  
  
The horror in Martha's voice unnerved Tony.  This was major bad news, and he didn't understand a word of it.  He turned to Tish, hoping for an explanation. Her mouth was a thin bloodless slash in an ashen face and she was trembling.  
  
“Tish. What is it?”  
  
“I remember.”  She managed to get the words out past her frozen lips. “I remember.”  
  
Her knees buckled. Tony grabbed her by the waist and held her up. “Probie!”  
  
Jack got to them first. He swept Tish up; she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung, shivering. Jack carried her into the living room and sat down in one of the big armchairs. Tony noticed that Ianto had moved very close to Martha. They held hands, and Tony could see the whiteness of their knuckles. Ducky and Tim joined Jack.  
  
“She was close to remembering earlier,” Ducky said. “But she couldn't break through. Someone really worked on her.”  
  
“He was good at that,” Jack said bleakly.   
  
Tim rubbed Tish back gently. “Tish? Can you tell  us?”  
  
After a moment she nodded. “The Toclafane...  he said they were too immature... He wanted real soldiers in the shells. He built a lab in Siberia... but his scientists couldn't figure out how to keep the... test subjects... from regressing mentally... Then some bastard who had worked at Canary Wharf reminded him of the Daleks.” She whimpered. “He set everyone to work around the clock, sifting through every record and report he could get his hands on... They found a mention of the Thals in UNIT files, but it was too late. The countdown... he wasn't going to stop that for anything. The last time he... we... visited Siberia he took the records and two empty shells back to the Valiant. Then he made me forget.” She whimpered again. “He made me forget.”


	17. Chapter 17

The waiter was barely out of earshot before Tony hissed. “Am I even allowed to ask?”  
  
Tim had to stop himself from laughing at Tony's obvious aggravation. “Why do you think Jack sent the two of you with me? He wants to give you the chance to interrogate me.”  
  
“And he kept Gibbs with him just in case there's more to his story,” Ziva retorted.  
  
“There's that too. You wouldn't do anything different, Ziva. So, what do you want to know?”  
  
“I don't even know where to start,” Tony told him. “Who is this Doc who left the files? What is it about Saxon that terrifies someone like Tish? What are Daleks and how do they fit in? And why the hell do all my alarm bells go off when I look at your boss?”  
  
Ziva jumped back in. “How old is he?”  
  
“Jack?” Tim asked. “Why?”  
  
“Because he said that he had spent time with Uncle Reuben in the Sinai, and I know from family history that Uncle Reuben worked in the Sinai in the nineteen fifties.”  
  
“Ah. Well, that depends how you count. In linear time he's...”  
  
“Heads up,” Tony cut in. “Aryan supermen delegation heading this way.”  
  
This time Tim couldn't stop the snicker. It might have been an inappropriate comment but it was an accurate one. All three of the men approaching their table were tall, broad-shouldered, and white-blond, and their eyes were some shade of cool blue. One was much older than the others, or at least gave that impression, in spite of an unlined face and an almost military bearing. They attracted interested glances from both men and women as they made their way through the crowded cafe, but didn't seem to notice them. The older of the three reached them first – by design, Tim realized.   
  
“McGee,” the Thal said, nodding to Tony and Ziva as he shook Tim's hand. “Any news?”  
  
“May I introduce Special Agent Ziva David and Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo of NCIS? They are working with us on this matter.  Ziva, Tony, this is Rafael Zandar of the Thal people.” He motioned towards the empty chairs. “Please join us.”  
  
“These are my sons Joshua and Alexander.” Zandar sat down, followed a moment later by the other two. “Yes, thank you,” he said when Tony motioned towards the beer pitcher, unbending enough to smile. “Beer is one of your people's greatest inventions. Well, McGee?”  
  
Tim decided to get straight to the point. “We know why Liam is interested in the Thals.”  
  
The old man closed his eyes for a moment, then nodded thoughtfully. “I believe that's why Michael decided to get personally involved. He hoped to hand over the man Liam without having to answer too many questions.”  
  
“You mean hand over Liam's body,” Ziva almost snarled.  
  
“If necessary.” Zandar sipped his beer before continuing. “We have lived unnoticed for more than two hundred years and we want to remain that way. We help where we can, at the, as you would say, human level and count the years until we are gone. Liam threatened that.”  
  
“What do you mean, count the years until you're gone?” Tony asked.  
  
“Our war with the Kaleds poisoned our world. In order to survive the radiation plagues we triggered a mutation cascade in our DNA specifically designed to accelerate our adaptation to the environment. The Kaleds took a different road, re-engineering their bodies down to essential systems and encasing themselves into metal shells. Those of us captured by Davros and his faction were forced to work without physical protection in their labs. The chemicals and radiation we were exposed to interacted with our unstable DNA in many ways, none of them positive. Most of us thankfully died. Those of us who lived  are survivors only to the extent that we are still alive. There will be no children of our own body.”  He smiled at their obvious shock. “Many of us have married and adopted children. We have good lives.”  
  
“And Liam threatened that.” Ziva whispered.  
  
“He still does. We have no desire to end our lives as science experiments or behind high walls _for our own protection_.” Joshua Zandar spoke up, acid dripping from every syllable. “You still do it to your own species.”  
  
Tim hastened to head off the impending battle. “How did Liam contact you?”  
  
“He seemed to have access to information about us. At first we thought he had gotten his hands on the UNIT files, but Michael called an old friend and he told us Captain Harkness had taken all the Doctor's records and secured them in the Torchwood vaults. All we know is that he had some of our names. He would call. If the person refused outright, there were... accidents. But at one point Liam slipped up. He sent a message through the son of one of Michael's workers. The child is blind and Liam must have assumed the boy couldn't identify him, but he seemed to have given Michael enough information for him to start looking.”  
  
 “So how did he identify him?”  
  
“I don't think anyone knows.” Zandar said. “The day he found Nicholas's body he had to deal with all the problems that usually arise after a sudden death, especially a murder. The next morning he was gone.”  
  
“So whatever it was must have happened that night.”  Tony mused. “Too bad we don't have a witness.”  
  
“I was there,” Alexander Zandar said. “He had been unquiet in his mind, and I didn't think he should be alone. But there is nothing I can tell you. He did not seem any different.”  
  
“What was he doing?” Tim asked.  
  
“Watching the news. CNN. There had been some sort of ceremony aboard Nicholas's ship the night before. He said Nicholas had told him to watch.”  
  
Tim unzipped his backpack and pulled out his laptop. “CNN. Let's see... here we are. The decommissioning of the USS Stout.” He turned the laptop to show the others. “Was this it?”  
  
“Yes. There's Nicholas, right there.” Alexander pointed. “As I said...”  
  
“Stop the video!” Ziva ordered suddenly. “Back up slowly. Stop. There.” She touched the screen. “That's Liam. The beard and glasses are new, but that's him.”  
  
“More to the point,” Tony said slowly. “What is he doing in SecNav's company?”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry this has taken so long. Real Life has been an utter and complete beast.

“What the fuck is that fucking bastard Jarvis up to?”

Tony stared at Leon Vance in admiration. He had listened to their report and then had, with great precision and attention to detail, shredded the Sec Nav's character, morals, and ancestry into ribbons. The tirade had ended with the expletive-laced question spoken in an almost meditative tone.

“There's nothing in his record that would raise any flags,” Tim said. “The Jarvis family are either career Navy or diplomatic service. He chose politics. Like most politicians, egocentric and a bit of an arse. Likes to have several fingers in the political pie and has skated quite close to the outer edge of legal in some of his operations, but nothing that would create a major ruckus.”

“Ambitions?” Ianto asked.

Vance snorted. “This is D.C., Mr. Jones. Everybody's got ambitions.”

“And you briefed him after you left here.” Ziva told him rather than asked.

Tony looked over his shoulder at his partner. Ziva stood in the angle between the bookcase and the window, scanning the quiet street outside. It was nearly midnight. With a shock of recognition Tony realized that it had only been two days since Tim had walked back into their lives. Tony made a mental note to ask his old Probie if the pace was always so insanely fast in his new job, then promptly discarded it. He had a feeling he already knew the answer.

“I seldom disobey presidential orders, Agent David,” Vance returned fire in the same cold tone. “And at the time there was no reason to think Jarvis was involved.”

Ziva ignored him and turned to Gibbs. “Where are the others?”

“At Ducky's. It seems Ducky's rig is better than mine.” Gibbs sounded amused. “Whatever that means.”

“A ten year old's rig is better than yours, boss,” Tony told him. “You would still be on dial-up if the phone company hadn't upgraded the whole neighborhood.”

“He's coming.” Ziva ignored the byplay. “Liam. During our training exercises he always preferred a fast surprise attack to cripple his primary opposition.”

“How? He's one man. Well, if he found Saxon's stash, he has another sphere, but he has to know that he's facing three of those things,” Tony tapped his wrist, “as well as regular guns.”

“Sonofabitch,” Vance tossed back the last of the whiskey Gibbs had handed him earlier. “The Watchers. There may still be some around that listen to Jarvis.”

“Watchers?” Jack asked.

“Jarvis recruited a group of agents to spy on foreign governments from Navy ships. Answerable directly to him. The group supposedly got disbanded last year but there have been rumors that they went rogue.”

“Tim. Let's send Mr. Jarvis to Coventry.”

Tony winced at Jack's glacial tone. Tim simply nodded. His hands flew over the laptop's keyboard. “Done.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Vance didn't actually sound too worried.

“Cutting off all communications from and to Mr. Jarvis.” Tim answered. “He won't notice a thing. Quiet night in the Navy. Friends all busy or suddenly out of town.”

Vance snorted. He reached down and pulled a Glock 26 from an ankle holster. “All right. What have you got, Ziva?”

Standing behind Vance, Tony felt safe in making a face at Tim. The NCIS Director, usually a model of bureaucratic efficiency, looked a hell of a lot more dangerous with a gun in his hand.

“Large black van cruised by then turned right.” Ziva moved away from the window. “A little too slow. Carefully spattered with fresh mud and it hasn't rained in a week. I'd give them four minutes. Side yard and solarium. Less likely to attract neighbors' attention, at least until the actual shooting starts.”

“Let's not take chances,” Gibbs said. “Leon, Ziva, upstairs. If someone's going to get clever that's how they'll do it.” He threw his keys at Ziva. “Door on the left. Nice window, easy access from the big oak.”

Tony winced. That had been Kelly's room. He pitied any idiot that went into that room; Ziva knew all about Gibbs' daughter. He watched as Jack and Ianto headed for the solarium without benefit of instructions from Gibbs. “Where d'you want me, boss?”

“You get the front. Just in case they're not as worried about the neighbors as Ziva thinks. Tim...”

He stopped cold. Tim was standing by the fireplace, eyes closed, swaying slightly. “Three in the back, two in the side yard. One on the oak.” His eyes snapped open and Tony was shocked to see that Tim's irises had turned a dark copper ringed with green, as if something had emerged from within, pushing aside their usual color. “Now.”

The kitchen door splintered under a hail of bullets. At the same time, Tim slammed his hand down on the laptop's touch pad. Every light in the house and yard came on, bright enough that Tony was momentarily blinded. He felt Gibbs push him into the foyer and behind the arch as gunfire erupted from that sounded like every room of the house.

He blinked rapidly until he had regained most of his vision. Looking around he saw Tim still standing near the fireplace, looking more like a genial host ready to receive guests than someone in the middle of a firefight. Tony tried to move towards him – what the hell did the Probie think he was doing? – but Gibbs held him in place, using his gun to point to the kitchen.

Two men rushed through the jagged hole where the door and frame used to be, guns at the ready, their useless night vision goggles hanging around their necks. Tim moved so fast that Tony could have sworn he had gone from one place to the next without actually crossing the space between them. One moment he had been by the fireplace and the next he was standing behind the two men. Tony saw him touch one of the men; it was a gentle touch, almost a caress, but the man slid down to the floor. The other one turned, screaming wildly, gun swinging in Tim's direction. Tony fired at the same time Gibbs did. The man fell on top of his partner, not knowing whether to clutch at his shoulder or his knee. Tim kicked their guns out of reach.

“Clear!” Ziva's voice came from above.

Tony put his gun back on its holster and sauntered into the living room. “Damn, Probie. That was something.”

“Sure was, Tony.” Tim grinned at him. “I'll see what's keeping Jack and Ianto.”

Tim started for the solarium. Suddenly a third man ran through the door, a Marine-issue knife aimed at his back. Tony grabbed for his gun but before he could even draw it out Gibbs appeared between Tim and his attacker, blocking him with his own body. Tony watched helplessly as the knife buried itself in Gibbs' chest.


	19. Chapter 19

Tim felt someone slam into him and heard the gunshot at almost the same time. He pivoted, twisting to one side, and found himself looking down at Gibbs, the knife protruding from his chest, a man in fatigues and night goggles slumped against the wall near the door, and Tony still with a gun in his hand. His mind dismissed the last two as irrelevant; the world narrowed down to the body at his feet, twitching slightly as blood seeped out around the blade. Dropping to his knees, he pressed the palm of his left hand to the top of Gibbs' head and the right to his chest directly above the knife. He could feel Gibbs' life-essence flickering as his body went into shock.  
  
“Jack!”  
  
Not waiting for an answer, he took off his jacket and threw it aside. As he started to pull his turtleneck over his head, he felt Jack's hand – it had to be Jack, none of the others had hands that size – cup his neck and squeeze hard.  
  
“What the hell do you think you're doing?”  
  
He looked up into the stormy gaze defiantly. Jack knew exactly what he was going to do. “Are you going to help me or not?”  
  
Jack's hand tightened and his eyes grew even darker. Tim felt as if Jack was trying to read his mind. He dropped his mind shields and simply waited. Then, to his relief,  Jack sighed in defeat.  
  
“On your own head it will be.”  He made a sweeping gesture with his free hand. “Everyone here. Now.”  
  
He waited until the others had gathered around them. Tim noticed that Ianto had taken a place near Gibbs' feet. Not for the first time Tim wondered about Ianto's odd ability to know exactly what Jack needed him to do. Both Martha and Gwen were convinced that Ianto was a telepath with a single open line leading directly to Jack, and suddenly Tim understood why.  
  
“Director, stand by Gibbs' head. His connection to you is work related and intellectual. Ziva, DiNozzo, across from Tim. In many ways he considers you his kids. Tim, strip. Ianto, help me strip Gibbs. Cut the shirt away.”  
  
“Strip him?” Vance nearly yelped. “Why don't we just call an ambulance?”  
  
Jack took a deep breath, visibly finding a small drop of patience somewhere. “The only thing keeping Gibbs alive is that knife and it won't do that for much longer. By the time an ambulance gets here he'll be dead. Tim is going to try an Aa'el ritual to bind Gibbs' life-essence to his body using his own essence as a catalyst. For it to work, they must touch flesh to flesh. If you are discomforted by the sight, we can manage a circle without you.”  
  
The look Vance gave him could have burned Jack's beloved RAF coat off his shoulders. “I'll stay.”  
  
Jack simply nodded, then knelt next to Tim. “We need to time this right. The moment I pull out the knife his body will start to shut down. You have to keep his _saiat_ inside him. It's going to hurt like hell,Tim.”  
  
“I know.”'  
  
Jack pulled Tim closer. Their eyes met and Tim saw everything he needed to see in the immortal's eyes: pride, respect, and a sadness so deep Tim couldn't see what lay beyond. Impulsively he leaned forward and pressed his open lips to Jack's. A few second later he felt energy flowing into him, an incandescent, living thing that bathed each one of his cells with wild power.   
  
He pulled back, smiling. “What was that for?”  
  
“A little insurance never hurts.”  Jack gripped the knife. “Ready?”  
  
Tim lay across Gibb's body, aligning their hearts and reaching out to grip Gibbs' right hand with his left. He dropped his mental and physical barriers and nearly flinched at what he found. Gibbs was almost gone. “Hurry!”  
  
Jack pulled the knife out in a single smooth motion. Tim felt pain slam into him as Gibbs' _saiat_ tried to escape the injured body. He fought back, sending his own life-essence into Gibbs, trying to reach the willful spark that still refused to give in to death. The pain burned tracks of agony along every nerve. Tears flooded his eyes, but he held on stubbornly, taking Gibbs' fear and desperation into himself and replacing it with all the passionate need, all the sexual craving, all the love he had carried for years.  Gibbs' _saiat_ seemed to shrink back, then flared up and out eagerly, reaching for what Tim offered.   
  
Tim felt their fusion as a shock of joy that jolted his _ta'saiat_ into full awareness. The wires extruded silvery filaments that flowed from his hip onto Gibbs' chest, burrowing in and around the wound. Tim didn't have to look to know what pattern it had taken: _Ta'tai family of the Ta'tau'el clan_. Gibbs had been tested by his family's guardians and found worthy. Even if he rejected the bonding, Gibbs would forever carry Tim's mark. He felt savagely glad.  
  
He pressed his mouth to the new sigil, exhaling some of Jack's energy into the already healing wound. A weak gasp answered him. He looked up to find Gibbs looking at him. Tim shifted slightly until their mouths met. It was an oddly chaste kiss, but Tim could feel Gibbs' own need flow along the bond, a confirmation and a promise.


	20. Chapter 20

A far-off rumble of thunder gave Tony the last shove into full awareness. He was thankful to be awake. He wasn't given to nightmares but when he had them they were Oscar winners. This one had involved that thing on Tim's back – Jack had called it a _ta'saiat_ , which seemed to translate into something like soul-guide, though it had overtones of something more intimate or more possessive   – reaching for him again and again. Funny thing was, he wasn't scared of what it would _do_ to him as much as what it would _see_ in him.  
  
He turned on the lamp on the bedside table and looked down at Tim. The Probie slept sprawling on his stomach like a baby. The _ta'saiat_ was a faint silver glimmer just under the skin. Jack had been surprised that he could see it, but to Tony's eyes it was as distinct as a tattoo.  He had actually thought it was a tattoo until it moved.  
  
After their kiss, both Tim and Gibbs had fallen into a deep sleep. Per Jack's instructions, the Boss had been wrapped in blankets and stretched out on the sofa, fireplace going full blast and Ianto standing guard. Tony and Ziva had maneuvered Tim upstairs and into Gibbs' bed. While Ziva watched Tim, Tony had helped Vance cope when the FBI showed up on the heels of the local cops.  
  
It was almost dawn before the house emptied. Vance had gone home to shower and change before heading back to the Yard to start the political balls rolling. The thought made Tony snicker. If he knew Vance, and he had learned a great deal about the man in the last few days, that image might be more literal than metaphorical. The NCIS director had been incandescently pissed off.  
  
A soft snuffle made him look around. Ziva was tucked into one of Gibbs' sleeping bags. She had laid it directly below the window. Anyone trying to get back into the house from the oak tree would get a very unpleasant surprise.  
  
He decided to check on Gibbs. Not that he didn't trust Jack and Ianto but Tony wanted to see for himself. Besides, maybe Ianto was up already and he could snag a cup of coffee. He turned off the lamp and made sure the blinds were tightly shut. Not bothering with shoes, he headed downstairs.  
  
He heard voices even before he reached the intermediate landing. The way the stairs turned, anyone coming downstairs had a good partial view of the living room without being noticed. Tony didn't have any particular objection to eavesdropping for the greater good, and he figured this qualified. He went down a few more steps then sat down.  
  
“You're going to have to explain,” Jack was saying. He was sitting in one of the armchairs nearest the fire. Ianto sat on the rug at his feet, head resting on his husband's knee. “Or are you planning to make both of you miserable for life?”  
  
“It's not that simple.” Gibbs sipped something from a coffee mug, then made a face. “Do I have to drink this?”  
  
“Yes, and don't try that on me. You and Tim are bonded for life, Gibbs. The _ta'saiat_ approved of you enough to adopt you formally into the family. And I've seen the way you look at him when you think nobody's watching.”  
  
Gibbs slammed the mug down hard enough to shake the coffee table. “And how do I explain it, Captain Harkness? How do I tell Tim that I killed him with my bare hands?”  
  
The air exploded out of Tony's lungs as if someone had punched him hard in the chest. He wrapped his arms around his knees and pulled himself into a compact a ball as he could manage.  His first instinct was to run away; something very young inside him didn't want to watch Gibbs topple off his pedestal.  
  
“Tell me.” Jack said gently.  
  
Gibbs stayed silent for so long that for an insane moment Tony believed he would never speak again. Then he gave a sigh and sat back, pressing the heels of his hands over his eyes. “God. We got caught right after we put Martha on the sub back to England. Tim and I were the only ones left by then. They took us to the _Valiant_. We figured we would be dead by sunset, unless they wanted us for an object lesson on the stupidity of resistance. Instead the tossed us into a cell and left us there. Saxon was obsessed with finding your team, but they kept slipping out of his traps. It drove him nuts. Breaking you was the only thing he cared about. He had started taking prisoners who he thought resembled them and using them...”  
  
“As torturers.” Jack's finished the sentence for him. “I barely remember that time. The Time Agency taught its agents dissociative techniques in case of capture. I used them to hide in the one place he was too scared to look.”  
  
“Towards the end they were taking anyone as long as they were young. Most did as they were told.”  
  
“But not Tim.”  
  
“No. Flat out refused. Saxon decided to teach him a lesson.”  Gibbs made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. “When they brought him back he was barely alive. One of the guards told me that they were going to give him to the Toclafane the next day.”  
  
“And you decided to spare him that.”  
  
“He begged me to. We both knew what the Toclafane did with their _toys_.” Gibbs all but spat out the last word. “I told him that I loved him then I killed him.”  
  
Ianto stirred slightly. “Were you punished for it?”  
  
Gibbs shook his head. “There was another prisoner in with us. He helped me.”  
  
“John.” Ianto whispered. “Tell us.”  
  
“Ianto...”  
  
“Hush, love. We're here and we're together. My only memories of John Hart are not very good. If he did something good at the end, I want to remember that too.”  
  
“All right. Yes.”  
  
Gibbs picked up his mug and took another drink. “When Saxon took over, John went back home. But home had changed. The future he remembered  had disappeared. The Master ruled everywhere with an iron fist, and his immortal torturer enforced his whims. John figured out that whatever had happened to your team had driven you insane. He said that's when he knew what he had been born for. His purpose.” He fell quiet, as if trying to find the best way to continue. “He went back to Cardiff. When he got there, he found that some damn collaborators had led the UNIT bastards and their Toclafane to your people.  He managed to get Ianto and someone he called _the ginger copper_ away, but he couldn't get to Gwen and Rhys. He told Ianto and the other guy what he knew and the three of them blew up the shuttle UNIT was using. Gwen and Rhys were killed, but your team never made it to the _Valiant_ and the Master couldn't break you.”  
  
“Andy Davidson. Tish's husband now. That's the ginger copper.” Jack sounded horribly tired. “So John changed history for me. And died for me.”  
  
“And never regretted it.” Gibbs said firmly. “Ianto and Davidson became the face of Torchwood. They rallied the Welsh and from there the whole British isles. John was caught when they stopped Saxon's plan to use a radiation bomb on Cardiff.”  
  
“What did you do with Tim's body?” Ianto asked.  
  
“John used his wrist strap. We took it to the incinerators. When the guards came for him, we told them other guards had showed up earlier.” Gibbs lay back. “John died three weeks later. He spent the time training me to use the strap. That's how Shadow was born.”  
  
Tony released the breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Probie needed to know about this, because Gibbs was too damn stubborn for his own good. He stood up slowly. As he did, his eyes met Ianto's. He realized the Welshman had known all along that he had been listening. He nodded, and got a slight smile in return.  He turned and went back upstairs.


	21. Chapter 21

Tim was finishing his breakfast – which was actually dinner, but the Spanish omelette and Ianto's coffee made it feel like a lazy weekend morning in Cardiff – when he heard Gibbs go upstairs. He swallowed the last bite, poured himself a second cup of coffee, and started gathering the ingredients for a meal suitable for a starving man. Tim remembered vividly how hungry he had been the day after his adoption.   
  
He was turning the omelette out onto a plate when Gibbs marched into the kitchen. “Where the hell is everyone?”  
  
“Director Vance, Jack, Tony, and Tish went to interview Secretary Jarvis at his home. He's under house arrest. Ianto and Ziva are visiting the local UNIT liaison office.” Tim put the plate on the table and offered Gibbs silverware neatly wrapped in a linen napkin. “Martha, Ducky, Abby, and Jimmy have somehow commandeered  one of the labs at Georgetown Medical. State-of-the-art medical cybernetics, or so Abby says.”  
  
“Coffee,” Gibbs nearly snarled, grabbing the napkin. Tim wondered whether anger would win over hunger, but after a moment Gibbs sat down and started eating. Tim poured him a cup of coffee and resumed his own seat.  
  
Half the omelette had been demolished before Gibbs put down the fork and knife and gave Tim his patented _I expect answers_ glare.  
  
“So why didn't we get invited?”  
  
“Because you nearly died twelve hours ago, I nearly died bringing you back, and we got married.”  
  
The glare evaporated to be replaced by sheer stunned disbelief. Gibbs rubbed his chest. “This thing?”  
  
“It evaluated you as a possible mate and decided you would do.”  
  
If anything, Gibbs looked even more stunned. Tim had never seen that look on Gibbs' face before – wide eyes, slightly parted lips, completely disoriented. It was the sexiest thing he had ever seen. Impulsively, he leaned across the corner of the table and kissed his former boss full in the mouth.  
  
For a few seconds there was nothing but the press of lips and the pounding of Tim's heart, then Gibbs' hands wrapped themselves around Tim's throat and his tongue swept into Tim's mouth. Coherent thought fled as Tim hung on to Gibbs' wrists and allowed himself to be devoured.  
  
The  kiss ended as abruptly as it started. Gibbs took a deep breath. “Tim...”  
  
“Don't you fucking dare.  Did you really think I would hate you for saving me from torture?”  
  
“I didn't save you!” Gibbs shouted. “I sent all the others away. Tony and Ziva joined the inland resistance. Ducky and Jimmy set up a roving clinic all up and down the seaboard. They fought and died cleanly, if they died at all. But I kept you with me and got you killed.”  
  
“It was a war. People die in wars, Jethro!”  
  
Gibbs looked away. “It's not going to work, Tim. One day you'll wake up and realize...”  
  
“Don't give yourself airs, Jethro,” Tim cut him off. “You've killed individuals. I wiped out a whole race.  Beat that if you can.”  
  
“Tim...”  
  
“They were known as the 456,” Tim continued as if Gibbs hadn't spoken. “They would get to a planet and release  disease among the adult population. Then they would offer a trade. Children in exchange for the cure. You see, the 456 were addicted to emotions, and the emotions of children are the rawest and most pure.” He set down his mug. “If the adults weren't willing to trade, they simply allowed the disease to run its course and took the children. When I ran into them they had just wiped out three million Haggittari adults. So I killed them. Addicts are very easy to kill.”  
  
“What did you do?”  
  
“A Haggittari child, called a gitta, is a parasitic symbiont with its hatching parent and if separated from it dies within three weeks. Its mind is undeveloped. They are pure emotion, untainted by thought. The 456 killed all the adults and settled down to feast on the gitta. I just made sure they ate too much too fast. I knew the 456 were telepathic  and I did it anyway.”  He picked up his mug, made a face and put it down again. “I need more coffee.”  
  
He had barely taken a step back into the kitchen when he found himself pressed up against the wall with Gibbs plastered against his back. The mug was taken from his hand and set down on the nearest surface, then both his palms were held flat on either side of his head by a punishing grip.  
  
“You really want this, Tim?”  Gibbs' whisper made Tim shiver. “I'm twenty years older and a lot meaner, no matter what you've done. God knows I don't have Jack's charm or sexual expertise. I'm a control freak with a hell of of a lot of emotional baggage and a bad temper. Are you sure you want me?”  
  
Tim shifted his weight slightly, then exploded into motion, pushing back and twisting at the same time. The movement threw Gibbs off-balance and made it easy to reverse their positions.  
  
“Yeah, I want it,” he whispered in the same tone Gibbs had used. “I've wanted you, you cantankerous old killer, exactly as you are, from the day you told me I belonged to you.”  
  
He stepped back. It was all up to Gibbs now.  
  
Slowly, Gibbs turned to face him. “So this marriage thing. Is it legal on this planet?”  
  
Tim laughed. “If we have a civil partnership in Cardiff we'll be covered everywhere within the reach of the Shadow Proclamation.”  
  
“I'll hold you to that.”  
  
“Jethro....”  
  
Now it was Gibbs' turn to laugh. “Gonna get cold feet now, McGee?”  
  
It was a direct challenge and Tim reacted instinctively. He pushed Gibbs against the wall and kissed him. As their tongues swirled and tangled he felt Gibbs' arms slide around his waist and pull him tight. He shuddered as their groins met. Gibbs's hands traveled down to grip Tim's ass, kneading. Tim knew he would leave fingertip-shaped bruises, a sign of possession on Tim's flesh. He spread his legs and moved his hips in short, shallow thrusts, relishing the strangled sounds coming from Gibbs.  
  
Gibbs pulled his mouth away. “You little monster. I'm going to take you to bed and fuck you until you can't walk.”  
  
“You better keep your promises, old man.”  
  
They dove in for another kiss, even more possessive than the last.  
  
And Tim's phone rang.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know how to apologize for the delay. I am at the exit end of a pain-control experiment that wasn't really working. I am slowly regaining some control over my days. Blessed be.
> 
> Please note that there's some SERIOUSLY DISTURBING IMAGERY here.

The three-story colonial sat in the middle of what looked like several acres of lawn in one of D.C.'s ritziest neighborhoods. The drive from the wrought iron gates to its front steps meandered among flower beds meticulously designed to give the impression of a wild meadow. Two mature oaks sheltered seating arrangements created from mismatched antique wire-work furniture. The place was too dignified to boast of its ancestry, but it was obvious to the people in the car.

“I didn't realize SecNav paid so well,” Tony commented to nobody in particular. “Maybe I should consider a career change.”

Vance snorted. “It's not his money. He married into New England aristocracy. ”

“I knew there was a catch. Oh look. A courtyard. With a fountain. How upper crusty.”

As Tony slid the SUV into an unoccupied parking space, one of the massive oak doors opened and Jarvis stepped out. Tony could see that under the usual don't fuck with me swagger the SecNav was tighter than a snare drum. Jarvis's left hand twitched at odd intervals, and he could barely stop himself from grabbing at it. Tony gave a low whistle.

Tish tapped his knee. “That's one panicked man.”

“He’ll try to bluff,” he kept his voice as low as she did. “He's that type.”

They watched as Jarvis pounced on Vance almost before the Director had both feet on the gravel.

“Vance! What the hell is going on? I get a phone call...”

Jack interrupted him. “Let's go inside.”

Jarvis whipped around. “And who the hell are you to give me orders?”

The easy smile was suddenly gone. “I'm the guy who could keep you from a very public smash, mister Secretary.”

Tony winced at the sheer amount of contempt the Captain had managed to pack into the last two words. It was obvious Jarvis had caught it too. He lurched towards Jack, hands clenched, then suddenly pivoted and went back into the house. They trooped in behind him, through a narrow, high-ceilinged foyer all marble and oak, and into a large office. Tony was a little surprised to see that it actually looked like a working office, with files and books piled up on the antique desk. 

Jarvis made a beeline for the big chair behind the desk and sat down, waving Jack and Vance to the leather armchairs facing it. Tish took a position to one side of the door; Tony automatically took the other, keeping his mouth shut but his eyes and ears open. “Let’s see if we can get this ridiculous situation straightened out.” Jarvis rested both hands on the blotter. “All I know is that the President called me this morning and asked me to stay home...”

“Ordered you,” Vance cut him off. “The only reason you don't have Marines posted at your door is that we didn't want to tip off your buddy Liam.”

The left hand twitched again. “I don't know anyone called Liam.”

“The raid on Gibbs' home was a complete failure.” Vance told him. “Two in the morgue and three in the holding cells. The survivors aren't happy. It was supposed to be an easy job.”

“If there was an attack on a member of NCIS, I should have been informed!”

Jack chuckled. “Have you noticed that you haven't had a single caller except for the president? Not even your secretary?” He settled more comfortably in the armchair, and it occurred to Tony that even though they were in Jarvis's office, it was the Captain who owned the space. “You were very unwise to let Liam join the delegation to the Stout. Michael Sexton's partner recognized him. Once we got our hands on that information, you were done. Let's get to the important part, Jarvis. Why?”

“I don't understand.”

“You're a bureaucratic pain in the arse and as power hungry as all the other so-called players in this town. But you had limits, things you wouldn't do. What changed?”

Jarvis started to say something then suddenly seemed to collapse. “Shit.” He leaned back and pressed his hands over his eyes. “It's my son, Ashton. He's been diagnosed with Friedreich's ataxia. He's only twelve, dammit.”

“How severe is it?” asked Jack.

“He'll be in a wheelchair in a few months.”

“Liam told you he could help. And you believed him.”

“He didn't tell me anything. He showed me the research! The Brits were working on correcting spinal column damage, and it was working. Liam said they stopped because the PM after Saxon pulled the funding. Stupid bastards.”

Jack stared at him for what seemed a very long time, then he pushed back his sleeve to show his wrist strap. “Liam was very selective with his facts. Let me show you what the spinal cord research was about.”

He pressed a few buttons. An incredibly sharp holographic image floated above the desk. From his spot by the door Tony could see every detail. It looked to be a lab. In the foreground was a... man? No, the top half of a man fitted into what looked like some sort of shell on wheels. Another shell, this one open, sat next to him. Behind them tall, blond men and women in white uniforms and wearing thick collars were lifting something out of a vat. As they brought it to the open shell, Tony caught a good look at it and had to fight his breakfast back down to his stomach. He heard Tish's low moan and Vance's quickly-suppressed curse, but he couldn't take his eyes off the thing.

It was a Z horror movie's idea of a mad scientist's creation. A large brain sat on top of a spinal cord that was four times its natural size and enough rib structure to allow organs to be attached. Tony could see heart and kidneys but no lungs or stomach. There was no brain case but there were eye and ear structures. As it was slid into the shell, Tony could see its eyes blinking.

“That,” Jack said, “is the earliest known recording of the creation of a Dalek. They strengthened the spinal column because it served as protection and support for the nerve roots which are enlarged and reprogrammed to assist in the operation of the shell. Watch. Nerves are attached into the sensor pads, ear structures integrated into the audio circuits, optic nerves into the visual. Now the main stimuli connections.” Tony winced as several tubes were pressed into the brain matter. “Final touches. Heart and kidneys attached.” 

They watched as the shell was closed, then Jack pressed another button and the image disappeared. “Is that what you want for your son, Mr. Secretary?”

“But the research could be adapted!”

“Daleks are humanoid, but not human. Every piece of that equipment, every surgical technique, even the vat nutrients would kill your son. To retrofit that research for human use you would have to start by creating three new branches of medicine and two of engineering from scratch.”

Jarvis shook his head as if to deny what he was hearing but Tony could see the doubt in his eyes. Vance leaned forward. “Where is he, Clayton?”

Jarvis hesitated for a moment. “The abandoned warehouses on Tingey.”

“Goddammit, Jarvis!” Vance jumped out of his chair as if propelled by rocket fuel. “They’re right next to the Yard!” 

He pulled out his cell phone, pressed one button, and started firing off orders to whoever was at the other end. Tony knew the Yard cops, as good as they were, had no chance against the Toclafane sphere. He took out his own cell phone, pressed the outgoing call button.

“Mimi? I know you're listening. I need to talk to Tim.”


End file.
